A new supporters' group, Rainbow Tractors, has been launched for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Town fans.

The new group, which is supported by the official ITFC Supporters Club, TWTD, Ipswich Town Ist, Turnstile Blues, the Gay Football Supporters Network and the Football v Homophobia campaign amongst others, outlined its role in a press release.

“Our aim is to provide support for LGBT supporters — especially by creating a safe environment, increasing awareness and working with the club to do more to increase awareness.

“We have noted the great work done at other clubs such as York City recently staging a day against homophobia when they hosted Southend United.

“In particular we’ve noted the development of the Proud Canaries group at Norwich City that has been endorsed by Stephen Fry and feel if they can do it so can we.

“Over the years there have been numerous incidents involving Ipswich Town supporters. Homophobic chants against Justin Fashanu, verbal and violent attacks against openly gay Town fans and low level homophobic and transphobic abuse used against players. Incidents like these create a barrier between the LGBT community and team sports.

“Welcoming the LGBT community into football can help the club grow by welcoming more supporters and increased participation from minority groups. Football has a powerful voice and influences how people behave. The established Kick It Out campaign against racism is a great example of this.

“At Ipswich we need more people to attend the games; we want a great atmosphere, with all football fans comfortable to come along and support their club.

“Over the last decade things have got much better. Portman Road has become a much more welcoming place. Rainbow Tractors has been set up to build on this and encourage inclusiveness by working on overcoming homophobia and transphobia and welcome a greater diversity of Ipswich Town support.”

Rainbow Tractors can be followed on Twitter, are on Facebook can be emailed via RainbowITFC@gmail.com, while their membership webpage is here.

Photo: Action Images

alienware added 07:25 - Mar 2 for superkevinwilson: You mean Carlton Palmer. Yes, his views are well documented ie that victims of racism should just take it. Ok then, if Carlton Palmer was playing in a match and you were a spectator in the stands, would you personally be comfortable with shouting abuse (sorry, banter) at him which had a racial element to it? Would you feel that this was in any way wrong?

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Marcus added 12:00 - Mar 2 While there are similarities with racism there's also one big difference - visibility. Stereotypes apart how would you know if someone is gay, straight, bi or even transgender? I know plenty who don't fit the stereotypes. I was at a presentation about transgender issues (incidentally hosted at Portman Road) a few weeks ago and only discovered that the end that the presenter was a female-to-male (FTM) transgender person, before that point I only suspected due to the content of the speech and not by anything else. What's most important is the word 'person' not 'transgender' - he should have just as much right to enjoy life, be safe and enjoy football as anyone else. If you think it isn't a problem or an issue then that's great. If you think it is a problem or an issue then that's one of the reasons why this group is needed. The debate is interesting and also validates the need - if there's no need for debate then there's no need for the group. We're still a long way away from an environment where we can say 'enjoy your football and just be yourself', rather we're at a 'if you want to enjoy football you need to act in a certain heteronormative way.'

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