Adelaide’s Feast Festival will host openly gay top-flight soccer player Josh Cavallo at ‘Elite Journeys in Sport’ – a panel event discussing the intersection of sporting and LGBTQIA+ communities. (Image: Nigel Mispa)
By Jacob Stevens | @jacobstevens__
Josh Cavallo knows what it’s like to be under pressure – more than most. As a professional soccer player for Adelaide United, Cavallo’s job is to perform week in and week out for his club in front of tens of thousands of passionate fans. And during his breakout 2020/21 season (when he received the club’s Rising Star award), he had to deal with all of that on top of hiding his true self.
Cavallo came out before the start of the 2021/22 season, making him the only currently active top-flight professional male footballer to be openly gay. It was an unprecedented announcement. Seemingly overnight, Cavallo was thrown into the media spotlight and became a role model and beacon of inspiration for more than just his sporting prowess.
This year, Feast Festival will feature a panel event called ‘Elite Journeys in Sport’, where Cavallo, alongside Olympian Jo Hill and Queer Sporting Alliance president Stella Lesic, will share stories about traversing the elite levels of sport as members of the LGBTQIA+ community. The event will feature a two-course dinner and the opportunity to ask questions and mingle with the sporting stars.
“Feast isn’t just an arts and cultural festival, it’s a community festival as well,” Feast Festival’s program and operations coordinator Amy Pawlowski says. “With all the conversation happening at the moment regarding LGBTQIA+ people in the sporting world, I think our sporting events are more relevant than most people would realise.”
Despite an outpouring of social media support from celebrities and sporting stars across the globe, the homophobic abuse Cavallo experienced from rival supporters during a match against Melbourne Victory on January 8 highlighted the issues that LGBTQIA+ individuals still face. It is still difficult today for people to truly be accepted for who they are without facing discrimination. In 2014, the Australian Human Rights Commission reported that 6 in 10 LGBTQIA+ individuals faced some sort of verbal homophobic abuse.
It’s easy to dismiss this abuse as nothing but a few bad apples. But the standard you walk past is the standard you set. It takes all of us doing the little things – listening, understanding and accepting – before people can truly be themselves in public.
Ms Pawlowski says that although Feast is fundamentally a queer festival, it is an opportunity for the whole South Australian community to engage with each other. “We are a rainbow festival, but we still encourage allies to come along and be involved,” she says.
By providing Cavallo a platform to speak and share, the festival engages many distinct communities and cultures in discussion. This ultimately serves the togetherness and inclusivity that Feast intends to create with its events. 25 years since its inception, Feast is still having a positive impact: spreading love, acceptance, passion and fun.
“Almost everyone you meet can tell you about their first time at Feast,” Ms Pawlowski says. “Regardless of how many years have gone past, we are still able to provide that safe space and that’s one of the best parts.”
Cavallo’s bravery in coming out to the public has been nothing short of commendable. Sports are traditionally hypermasculine, and 80 per cent of respondents to a 2019 OutSport survey said that LGBTQIA+ individuals were not fully accepted at sporting clubs and events. The sporting community needs trailblazers like Cavallo to break the mould and to inspire younger generations of LGBTQIA+ athletes.
As part of a response to the abuse Cavallo experienced last season, Adelaide United and Melbourne Victory have put aside their rivalry to stage a special Pride round in 2023. This is a small but significant step towards public acceptance of the LGBTQIA+ community. And now, with Feast Festival providing another platform for Cavallo to share his story, let’s hope we see more steps in the right direction.
‘Elite Journeys in Sport’ will take place on November 18 at the Norwood Football Club Function Centre.