Tom Daley Hits Back at Homophobic Russian Media Trolls
During the Olympics, Tom Daley was ridiculed for being gay on Russian media. Acknowledging he was unaware of it because, well, the Olympic Games, he condemned them with a call for inclusion.
What he missed was that "Channel Rossiya 1 made a number of bigoted slurs against Mr Daley during the Tokyo Games, as well as against other LGBT athletes, by referring to homosexuality as an 'abomination' and a 'perversion," reports the Daily Mail.
Asked about the bigoted coverage, Daley said, "I had no idea. When we're at the Olympics, we're in a bubble and we don't really see anything."
He added: "History shows that everything that society is has been dictated from the straight, white, male experience... If we could come together and use different points of view, the world would be a better place."
"The state-run (Russian) channels dedicated several of their talk shows to speak disparagingly about LGBT athletes at the Games, using words like 'abomination' and 'perversion,'" reported the BBC.
"In response, an International Olympic Committee (IOC) spokesman told the BBC they were contacting the official Russian broadcaster, one of the two channels in question, to express their concern."
"Discrimination has absolutely no place at the Olympic Games," they said in a statement."
"Rossiya 1, a state-owned channel favoured by Putin and his allies, is said to have particularly targeted the gay diver�Tom Daley�and trans weightlifter�Laurel Hubbard," reported Yahoo News.
British gold medal-winning diver Tom Daley, who is gay, and a transgender woman weightlifter from New Zealand, Laurel Hubbard, were particularly targeted on Rossiya 1, wrote the BBC. " The 26 July edition of the 60 Minutes programme was especially rife with slurs.
"One of the panellists, Alexei Zhuravlyov, who is a member of the Russian parliament, said he was 'disgusted' by gay and transgender people."
"We stand opposed to all this smut and perversion, strongly opposed," he told the show, pointing at the studio screen which showed New Zealand�trans athlete�Laurel Hubbard.
"We stand against this abomination," he shouted. At one point, Zhuravlyov used an offensive Russian word to describe gay men.
On Channel One, male presenter�Anatoly Kuzichev also wore a wig to mock New Zealand�trans athlete�Laurel Hubbard, and also "branded trans people 'psychopaths' and said they needed psychiatric treatment," adds the Daily Mail.
In addition, the BBC adds, another Russian politician and television personality MP Pyotr Tolstoy, from the Kremlin's United Russia party, took issue with the new Olympic motto "Faster, Higher, Stronger - Together".
"Speaking on the 20 July edition of 'Time Will Tell,' he argued that it was part of Western efforts to "implant their agenda of equal rights, additional rights for LGBT, transgender people and other perverts into the Olympic movement,"