Stuart Bonner sits in the change rooms at a local community sporting centre with tears in his eyes.
The 31-year-old from Glasgow has a fresh buzz cut, "a skinhead", as he calls it, and knows he can come off "as an angry Scottish man" with his thick accent.
But any facade of that kind melts away as his voice cracks while talking about his soccer club, of which he is now president.
"I don't think I would still be here if it wasn't for football. I have a history of suicidal ideation, self-harm thoughts, and suicide attempts," he tells ABC Sport.
"Without the support and the friends that I've made at Melbourne Rovers specifically, God knows what could be different."
Bonner is one of many gay men across the globe who've felt disconnected from sport growing up, but he has since found a sense of belonging in adult years through a queer sporting club.
Stuart Bonner grew up in Glasglow, where, he says, playing football is tough as a queer person. (ABC: Danielle Bonica)
Stuart Bonner grew up in Glasglow, where, he says, playing football is tough as a queer person. (ABC: Danielle Bonica)
Growing up, he was "relentlessly bullied" after a friend outed at him at high school.
"Being a kid was so tough, and being in school was so tough," he says, adding that for many players like himself, football is "a really hard place to be gay".
He found the sport "just really masculine", where trying to fit in, often as a form of self-protection, was exhausting.
"It takes so much effort to mask who you are," he says.
"The only way that I can maybe try and relate it, if you're in a bad mood and you have to go to work, you know that you have to put on a smile and put on a face.
"Imagine doing that all the time, trying to hide the fact that you were gay or trying to be more masculine or trying to walk a certain way, or deepen your voice.
"Even now, when I meet new people, I deepen my voice. But then when you walk into the Rovers, you're like, 'Oh, I don't really need to do that anymore.'
Melbourne Rovers is a LGBTQIA+ all inclusive football (soccer) club. (ABC: Danielle Bonica)
Melbourne Rovers is a LGBTQIA+ all inclusive football (soccer) club. (ABC: Danielle Bonica)
In Scotland, LGBTQ+ individuals feel more than twice as excluded from football than other sports, and in Australia, over half (53 per cent) of young LGBTQIA+ people have witnessed discrimination in community sport, and 40 per cent have personally experienced it.
Ryan Storr, adjunct fellow at Victoria University and cofounder of Proud2Play, says a lot of queer men avoid mainstream sporting clubs due to high levels of homophobia and discrimination, which can be verbal and sometimes physical.
"With football in particular, because of the historical roots, and because it's been played for such a long time, they've got that ingrained sexism, homophobia, discrimination generally into the very core of the sport," Dr Storr tells ABC Sport.
"It's particularly a sport that kind of encapsulates, let's say, masculinity in how it's performed in terms of being an aggressive sport, physical sport, [and] especially the fandom in particular."
Ryan Storr says a lot of queer men avoid mainstream sporting clubs. (ABC Sport: Amanda Shalala)
Ryan Storr says a lot of queer men avoid mainstream sporting clubs. (ABC Sport: Amanda Shalala)
Storr gave the example of historical homophobic chants in the Premier League.
The Football Association has fined Tottenham Hotspur, West Ham, Luton Town and Leeds United in recent years for homophobic chanting and LGBT+ supporter groups have been advised not to attend World Cup matches in Russia and Qatar due to safety concerns.
This differs largely from women's sports, which often have roots in queer communities, and a large number of openly LGBTQ+ players, both at the community and elite or national level.
While facing their own unique challenges, "[queer] women generally have been in safe places in women's sport, and so didn't necessarily need to be in separate spaces", Storr says, noting that types of queerphobia, and transphobia in particular, can still deter people from community sports.
Stuart Bonner says the community he found playing at the Rovers helped saved his life. (ABC: Danielle Bonica)
Stuart Bonner says the community he found playing at the Rovers helped saved his life. (ABC: Danielle Bonica)
'I get to be free and physical'
The Rovers have two men's teams in Football Victoria's Metro leagues: one in Metro 7 and one in Metro 9.
After hearing feedback that many women's teams across the state feel unsupported by their mainstream clubs, the Rovers are adding a women's team in 2027.
Aisling Haugh is one of the players in the metro 9, a team made up of people newer to the sport.
She moved to Melbourne from Auckland hoping to join a community sports team to make friends and build a new community.
Aisling Haugh was daunted to join a women's team but wanted to find a community through sport. (ABC: Danielle Bonica)
Aisling Haugh was daunted to join a women's team but wanted to find a community through sport. (ABC: Danielle Bonica)
As a transwoman, she was apprehensive about joining a sports team.
"I'd obviously figured out a few things about myself that I hadn't figured out in high school … that poses some interesting problems and invites a bit of risk regarding what teams I want to join," she says.
"Plus, there's also the whole sort of thing about transwomen and women's sports."
Haugh was 26 when she started seeing a doctor and going down the pathway of transitioning. When asks what terminology she uses, she says: "I consider myself a woman, and transgender is just a part of that identity."
However, without a women's team this year, Haugh joined the men's team after being assured about the trans-inclusive nature. Plus, she says, the idea of joining a woman's team was "a little bit too much", as she was already nervous about getting back into sports as a queer person.
"Queer people, especially if they don't have community, they minimise themselves and they make themselves small and it kind of reflects in their body as well," she says.
"Like you tense up and you tuck yourself in and community sport is just an awesome way to inhabit your body again.
"I get to be free and physical and run around, just kind of act a bit like a kid again with people who I feel safe and seen with … it's so incredible. I was training with a big smile on my face."
Stuart Bonner and Aisling Haugh are starting a women's team at the Rovers in 2027. (ABC: Danielle Bonica)
Stuart Bonner and Aisling Haugh are starting a women's team at the Rovers in 2027. (ABC: Danielle Bonica)
Haugh says she is hyperaware of what her face looks like, her voice sounds like and the way she carries herself as to what impressions she gives off when in public. But when she plays, she's able to just focus on the game, the ball and her friends.
"I don't feel dysphoria when I play, and that's crazy because even playing on a men's team as well, it's just me and my body."
A sense of belonging
It's not lost on Bonner that the sport that made him feel so disconnected as a queer person growing up is now what brings him and his teammates a great sense of community.
This really came home to him when he saw the Home is Football: Belonging in Australian Soccer exhibit at the Immigration Museum in Melbourne, where he is featured alongside Ange Postecoglou, Lydia Williams, and players from diverse teams, including refugees and asylum seekers, across the country.
"The quote on the wall when you first walk in is, 'Football is the reason we came, the friendships we make is the reason that we stay', and I think … that's what we all do it for."
Research shows young LGBTQIA+ Australians are turning away from community sport due to discrimination. (Getty: Morgan Hancock)
Research shows young LGBTQIA+ Australians are turning away from community sport due to discrimination. (Getty: Morgan Hancock)
'We train to win'
One of the biggest battles Bonner has now is people not taking the club seriously enough as a competitive force.
"One thing we've tried to really reinforce to people is we are the exact same team with the same ambitions as you are in terms of on the pitch. We want to win. We train to win," he says.
"We do accept everyone … but that doesn't mean there's no competitive spirit because there absolutely is."
The club's Metro 7 side finished third this season, winning 11 out of its 18 games and scoring 87 goals.
Stuart Bonner and Aisling Haugh say the Melbourne Rovers allow them to feel a sense of belonging in community sport. (ABC: Danielle Bonica)
Stuart Bonner and Aisling Haugh say the Melbourne Rovers allow them to feel a sense of belonging in community sport. (ABC: Danielle Bonica)
The Rovers recently travelled to Perth as part of a Pride Football Australia tournament and lost their game.
"It was heartbreaking. It was crushing … and that's a purely sporting thing. So we still take it as seriously as everyone else," Bonner says.
Part of why this gets under his skin so much is that the success of the club is personal.
"We genuinely change people's lives," he says.
"We have 68 members this year and we do surveys and stuff like that and people rate the sense of belonging as the highest out of all the metrics that we try and track.
"I just wish that people would give a bit more credit for that … I do take it really seriously, and I think for me that's because I'm trying to punch above our weight."
Bonner is aware this can translate into people walking into the club and perceiving a tough exterior.
But once anyone is around long enough to know him, the realisation is quick: "People know I'm quite soft and quite squidgy."