Host Demetra Giannakopoulos talks with Ian Pearson-Brown founder of Pride In Tennis, an organisation dedicated to LGBTQ+ inclusion in British Tennis. Ian who is a tennis coach and played tennis from when he was a child, speaks about starting the inclusion road via football (soccer) and how he has come full circle from joining in homophobic chants as a younger man, to standing on a tennis court with top ten players and talking to packed crowds about the importance of inclusion of LGBTQ+ community in tennis.

Socials: @prideintennis

FULL TRANSCRIPT

General: (Over fast paced dance music with a strong beat) Anyone for tennis? You’re listening to Hit Me Up with Demetra Giannakopoulos on Joy 94.9.

Host Demetra Giannakopoulos (DG): Our guest today is Ian Pearson-Brown, who is the founder and currently the Clubs and Venues Network officer for Pride in Tennis, which promotes LGBTQ plus participation in British tennis and is the 2024 winner of the LTA President’s Award for Outstanding Achievement and Innovation in Diversity and Inclusion. Ian, welcome to Hit Me Up.

IPB: Good morning.

DG: Now you’re good morning because you’re calling from London. Is that correct?

IPB: Close enough. I’m from Newcastle which is in the north of the UK. So yes, I’m aware it’s evening for you at the moment over there isn’t it?

DG: It is indeed. Please tell us about Pride in Tennis.

IPB: So, I’ve worked, in tennis as a tennis coach for, my most of my adult life. I was, a very sport smart kid. Loves my football with my tennis, and I was I realized when I was 13 that I was gay. I had huge issues with that. I found it very difficult to get into my head that I didn’t believe you could play sport and be gay, for a multitude of reasons. Partly the lack of role models, partly the internal barriers inside my head because I felt I had to choose between the two.

I developed a lot of mental health problems, including, depression, anxiety. It led on to some attempts to take my own life, and it also linked to the fact that I couldn’t accept that I was gay because I was heavily into sport. So if I had to choose between the two, I chose sport. I threw myself into a career as a tennis coach.

I was, 30 when I finally came out in the sports space. When I did come out, all of the things that I thought might go wrong, I thought parents might take the kids away from my coaching sessions. I thought my teammates might stop talking to me. None of those things happened of course. And then I realized that tennis is not a homophobic sport.

However, we never seem to talk about this subject. We never seem to talk about the lack of representation in, tennis, but particularly in men’s tennis, for LGBTQ plus people. I wanted to do something, as a volunteer to be able to change the narrative, namely to make sure that no young LGBT person would go through the experiences that I went through as a young queer athlete.

So I approached the LTA about ten years ago, and I’m going to be kind to them and say they were not ready for the conversation (laughter). So I did a bit of voluntary work in football instead, in soccer. I’m a dedicated Newcastle United fan and helped to found the LGBT fans group United with Pride. And I became a United as One ambassador for the club, and still work as a diversity and inclusion consultant for the club, which of course, is a major Premier League club.

And I learned a lot about, LGBTQ plus inclusion in sport. And I took that experience back to tennis at a time more recently, when the LTA were ready for that conversation, and we launched together Pride in Tennis out of the LTA National Tennis Centre in February 2022. I’ve been doing a lot of prep work for it. From there it just exploded. So tennis in the UK was a long way behind this conversation compared to other sports. And I would say in the last two and a half years, we’ve really pushed ahead as an industry leader. Now we’ve got regular visibility days in most major events, as during the grass court season, like Queens ad Eastbourne, we went something called Friday Pride Day.

We do the same when we host a Davis Cup or a Billie-Jean King Cup event. So we’ve done that, wheelchair National championships as well. So on a Friday Pride Day, we get a lot of visibility going, a lot of conversation around the subject. LGBTQ plus people in tennis. And, we also launched something, which we believe is quite groundbreaking, called the Rally Allies Training program, which gives all grassroots tennis venues access to, free LGBTQ plus awareness training, and also free resources pack, which allows their venue to then do some activation around the topic. And brings us to where we are today.

DG: Yeah, I mean, that’s a lot of initiatives that Pride in Tennis is undertaking that you have helped to found. Can I come back to the Friday Pride Day? Can you describe what that is and what happens on that day? Because it’s part of significant lead up tournaments to Wimbledon.

IPB: Every Friday of major events. We make sure that everybody who’s attending knows it’s Friday Pride Day. So we encourage them to wear bright colours or do a rainbow themed dress when they when they come and people do it. It’s it’s wonderful to see how many people in the crowd to actually, notice that and engage in that. Pride in Tennis would usually have a stall of some description where we’ll be able to give out information, but also, give out rainbow laces, rainbow sweatbands, we sell them, to raise money for the LTA’s Charitable Foundation.

We do some on court activity as well. We’ve got that progress flag flying above every, sort of centre court. We do a bit of media on court, we do a coin toss, we talk about the theme of the day and why it’s important. Some of the, the ball kids will wear the rainbow sweatbands as well. Hoardings around the site will have a rainbow theme to them to use the umpire’s chair sponsor will get involved. So there’s something visible on camera and, we’ll get some media coverage around that as well. So there’s, there’s quite a few different things going on during the day, both in terms of interacting with the crowd, but also, getting the, the exposure for the rainbow colours to a national audience.

DG: Wonderful. And you mentioned Rally Allies-Rally alleys (laughter)

IPB: That’s a tough one. Yeah, I know with the name…

DG: (laughter) I love it. But how does that work? Because it does sound like an amazing initiative.

IPB: So it’s a in its current form we do live sort of zoom workshops where any tennis volunteer, any coach, any official, anyone who helps to run grassroots tennis, at any level, whether it be a small club or a park court or whether it’s like a major national centre, anyone who’s involved in that can come on to the, the workshop, get some some basic ideas on why LGBTQ plus visibility is important. We talk about inclusive language. We talk about how to deal with homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia. We talk about what the barriers are. In tennis, which at times can be quite subtle but doesn’t make them any less impactful. And we talk about, the simple solutions to the complex issues. So for example, I know you asked me what my pronouns were before, which are he/him, I talk about, you know, people who are willing to put their pronouns at the end of their email signature in the social media bios, and it doesn’t do any harm.

It doesn’t make any difference to the first hundred people who you email. However, that 101st person who happens to be questioning their gender identity will find it much more comfortable to deal with you. If they’ve seen that you’re willing to share your pronouns with them. And that’s what an ally is. It’s just somebody who’s willing to, show outwardly their support of as the LGBTQ plus community.

And then you could immediately feel more comfortable when you’re dealing with them in that official capacity. And we apply those, principles to grassroots tennis. And, we’ve had around 140 grassroots venues so far, with representatives coming through the program at all of those venues, then receive a resources pack. And that includes something, some things to address the venue.

So that includes a rainbow flag, some rainbow bunting and a charter for the notice board with the inclusive values and rules. Something that the professionals of the club can wear, whether that be the team captain or, the coach or the receptionist at the staff at the entrance to the place. There’s things like rainbow sweatbands, or rainbow places and things.

If they want to do an event where they can have giveaways, we’ve got stickers and we’ve, we’ve actually managed to make a rainbow, dampener, shock absorber for racquets, which, believe it or not, don’t currently exist and you can’t buy them on the internet. We have to make bespoke so give all the, think of all the different types of shock absorbers, of dampers in the world.

You’ve got so many different types and colours and shapes and sizes, and nobody has ever thought to make a rainbow one before.

DG: I’m surprised by that.

IPB: Yeah, we’ve got something that money can’t buy. So. Yeah. Quite proud of that one. (laughter). So, Yeah, it’s, like I say, they all get the packs and then they’ll do some activation on the back of it, whether that be a rainbow tournament to celebrate their existing LGBTQ plus members.

They’re all dressed up in different colours, or whether that be doing an