The Victorian Netball League (VNL) will celebrate its fifth annual Pride Round this week with games spread across Victoria to promote inclusion and support netball’s LGBTQ+ community, supported by RACV.
Melbourne University Lightning was at the forefront of the movement to have rainbow and transgender representation through their dresses since 2018. A decision was made to start the club’s inaugural Pride Round which would then be implemented across the league.
This week, Lightning will don the rainbow dress once again and will be surrounded by pride.
After a couple seasons at the club, 23&Under Lightning captain Montaya Sardi knows the significance of the dress and what it and the round represents.
“The rainbow dresses were a way to create a welcoming environment where everyone felt accepted, regardless of their sexual orientation and gender,” Sardi says.
“The club wanted to make a strong statement about inclusion and respect both in the team and the wider community.”
The initiative for a pride dress started with Lightning 23&Under team manager and former club president Lindy Murphy. Her idea and passion for the dress inspired the players to wear it on court. Murphy wanted Pride Round to be different from other rounds. The players wanted to put the dresses on and have conversations about the values the dress holds like inclusivity and respect.
The ambition from Lightning has been instrumental and they feel that there’s a responsibility on other VNL clubs to follow suit by acknowledging and celebrating the community.
Millie Hogg is proud to be a Lightning player as they want to create an environment where everyone feels safe to play netball and not care about what others think about them.
“We love netball, we love our club, we all have our shared values of loving netball,” Lightning 23&Under vice-captain Hogg says.
“It’s important to have those conversations and levels of education within the clubs and players themselves.”
As one of the first clubs in the league, Lightning has witnessed the VNL evolve from being the only club to play with a pride bib in 2016, to the round being something celebrated every year with other teams also playing with pride bibs.
“The Pride Round started with just Melbourne University in the Pride dresses, but it’s been adapted throughout the VNL teams by adding bibs and ribbons to show their support in Pride Round,” Sardi says.
Representation. That’s the key to what the pride dress is all about.
The magnitude of the dresses story is something Hogg considers every time she puts on her dress for Pride Round, and she thinks something more can be done so others can have the same feeling as her.
“The dress symbolises inclusion, respect, equality and unity. It would be great to get more clubs with dresses or a design on their regular dress like some do with First Nations artwork,” Hogg says.
“Pride Round should become the norm instead of having its own round.”
Netball Victoria is committed to promoting principles of equality and inclusion, celebrating LGBTQ+ diversity and pride within the sport.
Resources are available for clubs, associations and leagues to support welcoming and inclusive environments.
