'A little bit sad' - Gough hopes mindset changing towards players coming out 

Gaelic football referee, David Gough, ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne

You might be surprised to hear that while David Gough will be in Dublin city centre tomorrow morning, he won't be marching in the annual Dublin Pride Parade.

Over a decade after coming out publicly as gay, the leading GAA referee will attend the Gaelic Players Association's Pride Breakfast in the city before making a quick exit.

He'd love to stay and make a day of it but having been pencilled in to referee the Kerry versus Mayo All-Ireland quarter-final on Sunday, marching for miles the day before probably wouldn't be the wisest.

"I'm going to steer clear of the Pride Parade this year because of the match on Sunday," he said. "I'd usually walk in the parade but I suppose just the nervousness of it, the waiting around that can be involved with it, the long walk, I just want to stay away from that side of it in the buildup to the game. So I'll be home early on Saturday afternoon and I'll watch the matches on the TV."

Gough has been a high profile LGBTQ+ advocate for several years and says that his is a 'very simple message; visibility is the key to all this'.

The problem is, while coming out in women's sports is viewed as no big deal, with plenty of iconic figures happy to echo Gough's calls for inclusion, visibility remains low in men's games. So much so that when Leinster's Nick McCarthy came out as gay in recent days, it caused international headlines.

"When I came out publicly in 2011, I just assumed that it would open doorways for other people and it doesn't seem to have," said Gough. "Or maybe they just haven't taken the opportunity. They're there, there's no doubt about it. We only have to look at the recent coming out within the Leinster panel.

"They've had two within the last year and it just hasn't happened (within the GAA), and we're talking about 64 inter-county football and hurling teams where nobody seems to have found a comfortable space yet or a place in their journey where they feel comfortable coming out.

"And that's a little bit sad because greater visibility leads to greater ease for people who are following in those footsteps."

Is the GAA doing enough to open up those pathways for players to be their true selves in public?

"It has...and it has more to do," reasoned Gough. "It's not a simple statement to say they have done enough or they haven't done enough. They're in the process of doing it.

"We only have to look back to 2015 when I wasn't allowed to wear a (rainbow) wristband, 2019 when we walked in the Pride Parade, to 2022 where now the GPA is getting involved, there is a diversity and inclusion officer, there's two dedicated LGBT teams in the two main cities in this country.

"We have Na Gaeil Aeracha, and Aeracha Uladh in Belfast, and that's huge and that gives young people who want to stay involved with Gaelic games an opportunity to socialise with people of their own sexuality and to play Gaelic games and to go and support Gaelic games with their friends and meet people who have similar interests to them. That is fantastic that that's where we're now at."

McCarthy explained when coming out that he'd considered quitting the game of rugby. Gough is glad it didn't come to that and explained how anyone coming out can benefit from being their authentic selves in public.

"I remember after the 2019 All-Ireland, when we were having our post-match meal with John Horan and Tom Ryan, and I spoke publicly at that meal to John about the sense of self acceptance that the GAA had helped to give me during 2019 with the Late Late Show appearance, with the Pride Parade and then to back that up by giving me the final, led to probably my best performance on a football field.

"That self confidence came from self acceptance and left me perfectly placed to referee in the best way possible that I could."

Gough said he has never experienced homophobic abuse at a GAA game and doesn't anticipate that it will happen. Ultimately he views the entire area of inclusion and acceptance as a fundamental human right of the individual.

"These are human rights and human rights are not up for discussion and that's just the way I look at it," he said.

On the issue of catering for transgender players, Gough said it's his understanding that the GAA is currently drawing up a document around this.

"I think it's nearly come to full fruition," he said. "I haven't seen the findings but I know they're actively looking at it and they will come to some sort of decision in the future. How long that's going to take? I don't know."

* David Gough is part of SuperValu’s #CommunityIncludesEveryone campaign. SuperValu are proud partners of the Cork Ladies’ Football team and are once again calling on each and every member of Gaelic Games communities across the country to do what they can to make their community more diverse and inclusive.