Mr. Aidan Walsh:

Visibility is the point we are talking about here. It is a similar situation with a lot of the community groups. It is so important for young people coming through to have visible role models.

In Ireland, male team sports is probably lagging behind female team sports. The international tendency in the LGBT community is that females are attracted to team sports while male LGBT people are more attracted to male sports. There are female dressing rooms and female sports are a lot more inclusive to people. There are a lot more LGBT people at elite level in Ireland on the female side than on the male side. There is probably a research element there on what male sport can learn from female sport in their dressing room environment, how they treat their colleagues and how they create a safe, welcoming place for people. The toxic masculinity that goes on in male dressing rooms is obviously preventing people coming out at a higher level on the male team sports side. Changing the culture at a lower level and researching what male sport can learn from female sport in the team environment is an important part of that. We would welcome research on that from an Irish perspective.