Stonewall on creative campaigning for change
- Written byRachel Segal Hamilton
- Published date 20 July 2023
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Looking back over the past three decades of progress for LGBTQ+ people in the UK, Stonewall has always been at the vanguard. As the charity’s guest-curated UAL Showcase Collection on the theme of ‘breaking through’ launches, we talk activism, engagement and equality…
In May 2022, Blackpool footballer Jake Daniels made history when he came out as gay - the only active male professional footballer to do so in the UK since Justin Fashanu blazed a trail back in 1990. “I am ready to tell my story,” the then17-year-old told Sky Sports at the time. “I am ready to be myself, be free and be confident." Jake’s words are the embodiment of ‘breaking through’, the theme of Stonewall’s UAL Showcase Collection, bringing together projects that defy stereotypes or societal limitations, giving voice to LGBTQ+ experiences and identities.
For Robbie de Santos, Director of Communications and External Affairs at Stonewall, the charity that supported Jake Daniels through the process, it felt like a real turning point. “We’d worked with Jake and the team around him to help him own that story and to tell it in a way that was empowering for him and to make sure that he had the most incredible wave of support right across football and the entire sports community, all the way up to government ministers.”
In more than three decades since Stonewall was founded, life for most LGBTQ+ people in this country has improved in many ways. Today, a couple can choose to marry, whatever their gender or sexuality, and to adopt children. LGBTQ+ people have greater visibility than ever before, within families, schools, workplaces and the public eye – Jake Daniels was inspired to talk openly about his identity by prominent LGBTQ+ sportspeople such as Tom Daley. And these milestones are the result of years of campaigning to change laws, policies and attitudes.
At the moment, Stonewall’s lead campaign is UK, Take Pride, which aims to secure commitments for LGBTQ+ equality under the next British government, whoever that might be, Robbie explains. “It’s important for our economy, for our communities to heal some of the divides that we've seen open up in the last 5 years and to really focus on creating a much more supportive and safe environment for LGBTQ+ people in Britain.” Alongside this, Stonewall is working on issue-specific campaigns such as Ban Conversion Therapy and IVF Access for All.
One of their longest-running campaigns is Rainbow Laces. The starting point is simple: encourage professional athletes, grassroots players and fans to wear a pair of rainbow coloured laces to welcome and celebrate LGBTQ+ sportspeople, who still face discrimination. Each year, Stonewall works with sponsors and partners in ‘Team Pride’, including the Premier League, Barclay’s, Voltarol and Sky Sports as well as sports governing bodies across Great Britain to engage hundreds of millions of people in the campaign.
“I've got a lot of respect for Stonewall and what they do,” says Sophia Nasif. The LCC Officer at Arts Students' Union, who was President of cheerleading, and was on women's rugby while an undergraduate at Kingston University, was inspired to lead the UAL Rainbow Laces campaign following debates around LGBTQ+ rights during the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. The SU bought laces and gave sports teams the choice to wear them throughout LGBTQ+ History Month in February and at Varsity on 11 March. Sophia invited students taking part to send in clips of themselves and their teammates. The response was phenomenal.
“There was a sense of camaraderie and creativity,” she remembers. “They had a lot of fun with it.” The women’s football and basketball teams braided the laces in their hair and, when the Varsity Cup was presented, athletes had embellished it by tying rainbow laces onto the handles like streamers. The laces themselves aren’t the end point of the campaign, though, “they’re a talking point,” as Robbie puts it – and it’s the conversations they spark that create change. “It’s about making each other feel safe and saying I stand up against hate,” says Sophia.
Stonewall works with creative agencies like Lucky Generals to produce campaign resources and communications. 2023 marks the campaign's 10-year anniversary. Every year they’ve led the campaign, Stonewall has partnered with a research company to gather data, tracking shifts in attitudes through a survey. That way, they can see the real-world impact that it is having. What’s Robbie’s advice for students setting up their own campaigns? “The number one rule is to understand your audience – whether that’s one decision maker or a whole population. What's going to motivate them to do what you need them to do?” And this applies whatever you do.
“When I was at university, I had no idea that the world of charity campaigning existed,” Robbie says. But in this world, he’s found a career that is creative, rewarding and purposeful: “you never struggle to get out of bed in the morning, wondering what the point of your life is” Working at Stonewall, there have been many stand-out moments, but Jake Daniels’ announcement is one he’ll never forget. “I’m proud that we were able to give Jake an experience that was absolutely right and will pave the way for other people to know that it’s safe for them to come out and to be themselves in the sport that they love.”
- Explore the UAL Showcase collection
- See more collections on ualshowcase.ac.uk/collections