Zander Murray Pride month

Highland News & Media

Scotland's first male out, gay footballer Zander Murray answers common criticisms of LGBTQ+ coverage, like "why is this news?", "stick to football" and "why are you shoving it down our throats?"

Transcript

00:00Why is this news? Because there's people struggling and suffering. Simple. Probably one word away

00:06from ending it all. I know that for an absolute fact because I was one of them. And if anything

00:11in the news that can support people like that, then I can only see that as a positive. Yes,

00:17you may not know or be aware of LGBTQ plus rights, community, people, but we're always

00:23going to be here at the end of the day. And if initiatives like the one we're here today in

00:32can enroll and be successful, which no doubt I'm sure it will be, it will empower so many people

00:39and help so many lives. That's it. Full stop. So what about people who tell you you should

00:46be sticking to football? Well, yes, if I was a general mainstream person,

00:53but we're not. I was obviously not. I was a minority. And like you, I never really understood

00:57the impact when I did come out and the array of people that reached out to me. As I've said,

01:01I've got 61 letters at home, probably over a thousand message requests. They've messaged me

01:06from all walks of life, part of the community struggling, whether that's mums, if I've got

01:11kids that are part of the community, that's older people, whether that's younger people

01:14that have reached out. So if I can help that one person struggling that means the world.

01:21Sorry, I've answered that. So that's when you understand that there is people going through

01:29a very tough time in football. And like the stats tell us, what is there, five at the minute who

01:35are open about the sexuality out of 130,000? There should be about 9,000 that are part of the community,

01:42so the LGBTQ community. So that tells you we've got a bit of an issue on our hands.

01:48So until that gets better, I think that point is irrelevant.

01:51And this last one, we see a lot in football content and out of football content, anything

01:57LGBT related. People often say, why are you shoving it down our throats? What would you say to them?

02:03What do you mean shoving it down your throats? You're shoving it down your throats that you're

02:05on social media, on your phone downscroll, on something that, why does it even come up your

02:10timeline? It's coming up your timeline because it's probably on Twitter and Twitter wants to create that

02:13rage and denial and hatred. So that's probably the reason why. Similarly, do you speak about this

02:22when there's a racism campaign, when there's an ableist campaign, there's a sexism against

02:27sexism campaign? Do you speak the same? Probably not. We're not shoving down anyone's throat,

02:32we're just ensuring that football can be, or should be, a safe space for people to go and watch the

02:38football. And unfortunately, in recent times, out and out football have done a recent start,

02:43seven out of ten fans still hear homophobic chants at stadiums in the UK. Again,

02:48that tells me I have a lot to do, not just from players, but from fans as well. So we're

02:53not shoving into people's phrases, we're just trying to showcase.

02:57This should be a safe space, because it's the number one sport in the world.

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