WITH THE final round of the AFLW season coinciding with the annual Pride Round, Carlton Football Club’s support of Minus 18, Australia’s largest charity for LGBTQIA+ youth, continues for another year.

Minus18 has been creating safe events for youth members of the LGBTQIA+ community for 25 years and focuses on creating social connections and togetherness.

The charity also supplies education that focuses on inclusive cultures in workplaces and schools with an aim to increase the visibility of co-workers and students in these settings.

Rebecca Herft of Minus 18 spoke to Carlton Media about the importance of education and using a round like AFLW Pride Round to bring inclusivity to a broader spectrum of the community and further LGBTQIA+ visibility in football.

“Education is such an important pillar at Minus 18 because it really focuses on creating inclusive cultures for LGBTQI+ people," Herft said.

"Whether you’re a teacher at a school, you’re learning about queer people, you’re learning about how to be an ally to support all queer young people within your school.

“If you’re someone at a workplace there are always queer young people or queer adults that come through to work for an organisation, so it just ensures that there is an inclusive culture in the workplace as well.

“This could be through ally training, but it could also be through visibility, like wearing a pronoun pin, having rainbow lanyards, whatever it is that you would like to do to share your authenticity but to also advocate for the queer community”

In recent years, Carlton and Minus18 have forged a relationship that allows the charity to show a presence during Pride Round.

The growing support of the LGBTQIA+ community among the AFL and Carlton is something that Herft welcomes with open arms, confirming that the acceptance and representation is making more and more queer people want to attend and be a part of the AFLW culture.

To further its support to Minus 18, since 2019 Carlton has donated a portion of the proceeds from the Pride guernsey auctions to the organisation.

“Carlton donating to Minus18 ensures that they are supporting LGBTQI+ people and it's really great to know that Carlton authentically does this year-on-year because it really does show the care that they have for the community and this all started with Carlton’s Pride group.

“We’re really grateful to not only work with Carlton’s Pride group but also with everyone internally at Carlton Football Club for both the AFLW and the men’s program as well,” she said.

“It really shows that there are so many fans out there that can come to Carlton Football Club they can sit in the grandstands at IKON Park or at the MCG or at Marvel Stadium and they know that they belong there because they feel safe to be there”.