‘Why is the Qatar World Cup so problematic?’ Phoebe Reast-Jones

This deliberate misleading on behalf of FIFA is an extremely dangerous decision, given the worldwide impacts this sporting event could have on society. In fact, despite FIFA’s claims of programs to offset the environmental impacts, there have been some clear corners cut, such as the assumption that all flights to Qatar would be one-way. Despite, the claims that a large solar plant would help provide energy for the event, climate activists are still sceptical of how effective FIFA’s arguably performative claims will be. Only time will tell.

Moving away from the World Cup itself, there are many questions surrounding Qatar’s longstanding history with its treatment of LGBTQ+ and female members of society. Many human rights activists fear that Qatar is attempting to ‘sportswash’ (a term coined in 2010 to describe the use of a sporting event to remove scrutiny regarding controversies) these discriminations. Within Qatar’s legislation there are high penalties for those who pursue homosexuality, but many take further issue with the widespread police harassment and intimidation of LGBTQ+ Qataris, with many queer fans expressing concerns regarding their own safety when travelling to the tournament. This has been brought to media attention through actions such as Joe Lycett and his challenging of public figures who are contributing towards media for the World Cup. In addition, Qatar’s clear restrictions surrounding free speech such as imposing regulations concerning journalist access to the World Cup and sanctions for those challenging the countries’ often divisive beliefs and values raise questions surrounding how little we truly know of the mistreatment and discrimination in Qatar.

Combining all of this shows a clear picture of a tournament heavily drenched in problems and concerns from an international audience, ranging from environmentalists to LGBTQ+ people. It begs the question, how far are large corporations such as FIFA willing to go, in an attempt to hide probable corruption and questionable morals? Arguably, at the heart of this controversy, lies not social or environmental distress, but instead economic and political gain, as is common in our ever interconnected and ever corrupt global society. This matter goes much further than just football.

Asriel Wilde

The world is rapidly becoming a hostile place to be transgender. According to the Human Rights Campaign, at least 32 transgender people have been murdered so far in 2022, the majority of these being Black trans women. On Trans Day of Remembrance - 19 November 2022 - Club Q, a trans inclusive queeroriented nightclub in Colorado, was attacked leading to the tragic deaths of five people, including two transgender people. A doughnut shop in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was firebombed by a far-right extremist for hosting a drag show. Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan last August, harrowing reports of trans people being imprisoned, raped, tortured and killed have emerged. These assaults on trans people are nothing new – our community has experienced attacks like these for decades – but what has changed is an increasingly hostile environment for trans people in politics and in the media.

The media environment in particular is becoming exceptionally hostile to transgender people. Headlines over the past few years have included those such as ‘Lesbians are being erased by transgender activists’, ‘Schoolchildren are identifying as transgender just to be rebellious’, ‘Trans activists have no shame’, ‘The tyranny of the transgender minority has to be stopped’ and, perhaps most strikingly of all, an article in the Mail on Sunday in 2018 with a title reading ‘Terfed out by the Trans Taliban’.

This comes amid a spate of attacks from politicians, who previously expressed solidarity with the trans community, spreading the mistruth that “trans women are men” in the face of biological, sociological and historical evidence to the contrary as it is politically expedient for them to do so: in the July Conservative Party leadership race, Penny Mordaunt dismissed the assertion that she had previously backed self-identification for transgender people when it was proposed by Theresa May’s government as “smears” and Rishi Sunak, who in the same leadership race promised to make the UK “the safest and greatest country in the world to be LGBT+”, is now reportedly proposing a review of the Equality Act 2010 to gut its protections for transgender people. On his first day in office, he appointed Kemi Badenoch as minister for women and equalities, who has previously referred to transgender people as ‘transsexual’, referred to trans women as men and who held meetings with the LGB Alliance, a trans-exclusionary organisation which is recognised as a hate group in countries such as Ireland and Australia.