Tom Daley: Stepping up as sport’s leading LGBTQ+ voice for change – Gay Times Magazine

A year earlier Tom was fresh from his victorious gold medal win in the 10m synchronised diving. Despite the 2020 Olympic Games hosting the most openly LGBTQ+ athletes ever, Tom was aware that more needed to be done by sporting federations to apply pressure on countries where LGBTQ+ people face grave legal and social challenges to their existence. He began to speak more confidently about his own role in pushing forward that change, making statements on how countries that criminalise LGBTQ+ lives should be banned from being able to host international sporting events. His thinking was that by doing so, legislative reform could potentially happen more swiftly and offer both hope and protection to LGBTQ+ citizens most at risk.

Homosexual activity remains illegal in 35 of the 54 nations that make up the Commonwealth. In Brunei and Northern Nigeria the maximum punishment is the death sentence, whereas Ghana, Pakistan and Uganda are part of 11 countries that enforce prison sentences. The remaining 22 countries where homosexuality remains illgeal, punishment is rarely enforced. However, societal attitudes means LGBTQ+ citizens cannot live freely without fear of discrimination and violence. They also have little to no protections when it comes to housing, healthcare, employment and safety. We’ve seen progress in recent years with Botswana, Guyana, and India all striking down colonial era penal codes that criminalised homosexuality. Since the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2018, Kaleidoscope Trust’s 2022 review looking at the changes in country-level commitments to LGBTQ+ people since then found that 10 countries had positively reformed laws to better protect their LGBTQ+ citizens. However, that is outweighed by 16 country-level negative setbacks, and a decrease in safety for LGBTQ+ people across the Commonwealth.

Much greater public awareness of these horrific challenges that LGBTQ+ people face across the world is needed, but also a better understanding of why these societal and cultural attitudes exist in Commonwealth nations in the first place. On a mission to shine a spotlight on the homophobia across the Commonwealth, as well as the British Empire’s role in imposing it, Tom has worked with the BBC on a new documentary that aims to educate audiences as part of a bigger process to achieve positive change. “Going into it I thought banning countries with anti-LGBTQ+ laws from hosting [the Commonwealth Games] was going to be it,” Tom tells us for his first-ever GAY TIMES Magazine cover story. “I go on this journey of being, ‘Actually that’s probably not the best way to go about it.’ I felt like there was so much more to this than campaigning behind closed doors and being able to follow the journey can bring with it a little bit of weight. Without the documentary, I don’t think the Commonwealth Games would have agreed to do what they did at the Opening Ceremony. I had to pull the, ‘OK, that’s fine, if you don’t want to do it I just have to reflect that truth in the documentary.’” Tom is frank about the resistance he’s faced from sporting bodies throughout this process, highlighting that garnering support for marginalised LGBTQ+ communities is still tough in the world of sport. “It was actually the president of the Commonwealth Games Federation that stepped in in the end and she was like, ‘Nope, we’re going to do it. We’re going to make it work.’” Tom says. “That was a really big move and it was amazing to see Dame Louise [Martin] do that.”