British racing celebrates Pride 2022

Pride is about communities coming together in celebration, protest, unity and solidarity for LGBT+ equality. It is celebrated in June each year in the UK but celebrations happen all across the country throughout the summer months, and this year will mark 50 years since the first ever UK Pride march in 1972.

Pride month offers a fantastic opportunity for racing to demonstrate its support for the LGBT+ community.

Below, Racing With Pride shares some top tips, key resources, and assets, to help you show your support this Pride month and beyond.

Why is celebrating Pride important?

Despite the gay rights movement achieving numerous legislative victories in this country, there are still underlying attitudes towards LGBT+ people that take longer to change, as such, the Pride movement today is still as important as ever:

• Homophobic attacks are increasing – in the first 8 months of 2021 over 14,000 homophobic hate crime offences were recorded in the UK, compared to 10,000 in 2019.
• The LGBT+ community are 3 times more likely to be affected by mental health conditions.
• We must not forget that members of the LGBT+ community are racing’s current and future customers, employees and participants, and so the sport is not exempt from this.

David Letts’ research showed largely positive attitudes towards sexual minorities, yet LGBT+ people in racing still have a fear of coming out and being their authentic selves in our sport.

How can we, together, bridge this gap and ensure everyone feels they can be their true selves in racing, without fear of discrimination or abuse?

Top Tips for Pride Month and beyond – get involved and make a difference

Racing With Pride’s theme for this year is ‘community’ and we are encouraging you to look at how you can support racing’s LGBT+ community as well as engaging with new audiences through community outreach initiatives.

Below are some top tips to start the conversation and highlight ways in which engagement might be possible, whatever your knowledge or resource.

Be visible – badges, lanyards, posters, race names, and social avatars are all great visible demonstrations of support. You could also look to include pronouns in email signatures. These can be extremely powerful, particularly to those assessing the acceptance of an environment, and can be supported with other actions.

Learn – undertake the newly updated LGBT+ e-learning module on Racing2Learn and display your completion certificate as a sign of your commitment. You can listen to LGBT+ podcasts, attend webinars (see below) or invite a speaker to better understand the issues at hand.

Engage – Racing With Pride is here to support you, so please reach out to us. Local Pride events and LGBT+ groups are also great avenues to explore. By working with LGBT+ individuals it will be easier to ensure your efforts are best placed.

Review – open the dialogue about LGBT+ inclusion in your workplace. Is your organisation’s acceptance explicit? Are your policies LGBT+ inclusive? How do you respond to reports of discrimination? Can these be an agenda item at your next meeting?

Explore – look at opportunities to show your support beyond Pride month; by doing so, we can ensure racing’s workforce and fans feel accepted and included all year round.

LGBT+ Inclusion Assets

Here you will find a selection of assets available for you to use to help your celebrations:
o Racing With Pride Racecard adverts – a selection of sizes available
o Racing With Pride racecourse screen advert
o Racing With Pride printable poster
o Racing With Pride social media images
o Racing With Pride quote template
o Racing is Everyone’s Sport films
o RaceWISE Equality poster

Free practical learning resources

LGBT+ Awareness and Inclusion E-learning – this recently updated module on Racing2Learn is free to access, why not ask all your staff to complete it?

Preparing for Pride Webinar – academic David Letts and Sports Media LGBT+ Founder, Jon Holmes, explain how organisations can communicate their support for Pride month and the LGBT+ community in June and year-round.

Rainbow Ready – a practical guide to support you to get the messaging right.

How to be a good LGBT+ ally Webinar – an inspiring discussion on what allyship means and what steps we can all take to step up and support the LGBT+ community.

Racing With Pride is keen to ensure an open dialogue with individuals and organisations within British racing all year round; we hope that by sharing activity and best practice we can support one another in a coordinated approach for the benefit of everyone in the sport.