Tag: Pride Month

Brigada71 Prideraiser for Brooklyn Community Pride Center

Posted on by Brigada 71

Brigada71 is proud to announce a partnership with the Brooklyn Pride Community Center for our participation in this years Prideraiser. Brigada seeks fixed pledges for every Cosmos home goal scored in June, with all donations going directly to helping programs and services for LGBTQIA individuals in need living in New York City’s largest borough.

Click Here to Donate

After being inspired by Mateo Durango and Johnny Borrajo’s efforts with Playing for Pride, we decided on starting a campaign with Prideraiser. Bred out of a simple challenge between friendly supporter groups in Chattanooga and Detroit, supporters groups with Prideraiser raised over $12,000 last year for local LGBTQIA causes. With the number of groups nearly tripling this year as compared to 2018, we’re more than happy to add our name to the list and keep with our ethos of aiding our LGBTQIA comrades in the stands as well as outside of it.

There’s no better partner for us in this effort than Brooklyn Pride Community Center. Through a variety of positive, life affirming activities, Brooklyn Pride Community Center aims to give the LGBTQIA in New York City’s largest borough a safe space to celebrate, heal, learn, create, organize, relax, socialize, and play. For more info and ways to get involved, feel free to visit http://lgbtbrooklyn.org/.

Additionally, we would like to announce that June 9th will be our section’s Pride Celebration match as the Cosmos face New York Athletic Club at Commisso Stadium at 7pm. Come out, party, and watch your dollars go to work as we put seven past a gym club while celebrating pride. No place for homophobia or transphobia, no compromise.

There’s always more work to be done as we fight for inclusion for all (besides fucking nazis), but be sure to give what you can to continue the cause in Brooklyn.

Vamos Cosmos!

Pride in the Stands

Posted on by Brigada 71

Let’s be perfectly blunt. Soccer Every Sport has a serious toxic masculinity and homophobia problem. This isn’t news to anyone. There are currently a grand total of zero male-identifying openly gay soccer players in the top 5 leagues in Europe (Spain, England, Italy, German, & France).  With the retirement of Robbie Rogers this past November, there are the same depressing number of male-identifying openly gay athletes in any of the five biggest professional sports leagues (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and ML$) in North America. Troubling as this is, according to a poll from Stonewall and Forza Football, 37% of U.S. soccer fans still say they would not feel comfortable with a gay or bisexual player in the national team. Compare that to just 20% of fans in the UK or 13% in Iceland. As a young athlete or professional player or even a supporter in the stands, questions of sexual orientation or gender identity should never factor into one’s decision to get involved in soccer, or any sport. On the field or in the stands we want everyone (except fucking nazis) to feel welcomed and loved like comrades.

Cosmos Pride Rainbow Pyro display for Pride Month 2017

As soccer fans and Cosmos supporters, we knew there was a great deal of work to be done to ensure our home stand was safe and inclusive.  We started out a few years back with a w 4’x6′ pride flag sloppily spray painted with “Cosmos Pride” and moved up to a hand-painted tifo three times as wide, our logo front and center and a section-wide rainbow smoke display to make our message clear: LGBTQIA comrades are welcomed and loved here, homophobia and transphobia can get the fuck out.

We’re not making the mistake of thinking our work is done with an annual display though. The barra brava culture which our makes our section a party like no other has also been far too often guilty of singing homophobic slurs like “puto” in our songs. We’ve confronted and will continue to confront our 5 Points family to re-write lyrics, change songs, and open our arms to make sure no one (except the fash) feels unwelcome.

— Cosmos Ultras