³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

Sarah Jones is a Welsh hockey player who helped Great Britain win Olympic bronze at the delayed Tokyo 2020 Games. She represented Wales at the 2014, 2018 and 2022 Commonwealth Games. As part of a series for Pride Month, she writes about how hockey helped her come out - and how the sport's challenge is now to be a safe space for everyone.

When I was younger, it didn't occur to me, even having had relationships with women, that I was gay - and I appreciate that is a slightly baffling thought.

It took going to university, and joining the hockey team, to give me that confidence to come out - and even then, it still took some time for me to say the words.

Growing up in the 1990s, I didn't see many books, TV series or films that gave any information about being gay. When I think of the first gay couple I saw on TV, I think it would be a gay male couple - I actually can't think of the first lesbian couple I saw.

There was no-one in my private life who was gay or part of the LGBTQ+ culture, so all those feelings that I had, I didn't understand them.

But hockey was different.

Cardiff Athletic, which became Cardiff Met, was the first hockey club I joined, aged 13. It was my first time seeing out, gay women, in any kind of environment. It created, for me, a very normalised feel in terms of having partners coming to watch games and having dating chats about women as well as men.

When I was 18, I went to Loughborough University, which I didn't actually know was a sports university. And yes, I know what you're thinking - what was this girl doing?

After freshers' week, my next-door neighbour Rachel asked me if I'd thought about going to any of the sports trials. I said I might go to the football trials, because I used to play when I was younger, but I hadn't played hockey for a while. Rachel had a spare hockey stick so I ended up going to both, and then got an email the next day - I'd got into the football second team, and the hockey third team.

Why didn't I pick football? Well, we went on a hockey social night out - and it was just such a laugh. I found a lot of really great people who had the same interests as me and, really, just wanted to have fun. And that was my decision to play hockey instead of football - which, I guess, is a testament to how my brain was working when I was 18...

But from there, it was a similar thing to when I joined Cardiff Met. A lot of these girls were gay and in varying degrees of being out. Some were in relationships, some weren't. A lot of people, frankly, were just figuring it out. But being in that environment gave me confidence in who I was and how normal it is.

When I've told this story, I've always spoken about how inclusive hockey is. And for me, it very much was. But I've been thinking recently that my experiences are very much that - mine. I am a gay, cisgender, white woman, and I can only speak to my experiences as that.

Hockey needs to make choices to be inclusive of all, regardless of a person's skin colour, where they are on the LGBTQ+ space or what background they come from. Tournaments such as the Olympics, for example, are so visible - they can shape political movements and set the tone for for so many other spaces in life. It has that ability to shape and change lives, which is what makes it so fantastic, but also so powerful.

In the past five years or so, holiday-wise, I have consciously chosen to not go to locations that would make me feel like I can't be the person that I am. With hockey, there has never been a situation where I've had to really question whether I should go to that country. And I feel really fortunate, because I know that would be a hugely difficult decision to make - especially if it was a major tournament.

It will be interesting to see how sporting events go in the next four years. And I really hope that sport - and hockey specifically - make good decisions on where they go, based on the people that they know play hockey and the audiences that they want to attract. Hockey is such a fantastic sport to bring people together, and it can be highly inclusive - but only if that is the way the sport decides to go.

I know what hockey did for me, and the confidence and joy it has given me. I want it to be that space for everyone, so everyone can feel comfortable being themselves.