Personal views: The death of a footballer, equality, and medicine
Authors: Stephen Davies
Journal: BMJ (1998)

Doctors deal with death and inequality every day, yet attitudes persist within the medical profession that may contribute to both of these. 

The death of the football player, Justin Fashanu, was reported in an uncharacteristically dignified way. We were offered the portrait of a gifted striker whose career was ruined because he was gay, his life ending in sordid shame. We seem comfortable with the notion of homosexuality as a tragic, often fatal flaw, shared by a long list of admired figures including Oscar Wilde, Rock Hudson, Gianni Versace, and George Michael. 

Fashanu’s obituaries should have given an account of a courageous man who fought to overcome many adversities—abandonment by his parents to the orphanage, racial prejudice, and homophobia. Rather than allow whispers about his sexuality, he “came out” in 1990, braving further rejection, by his younger brother, his team mates, his manager, and the press with speculation of scandals with MPs. Despite all of this he was determined to continue with football. He was clearly a man who coped by fighting. How out of character then for him to have taken his own life. Certainly, reports of his final weeks in America suggest that he may have succumbed to the guilt and loathing projected on to him and turned to the church again for help. He may have become depressed, though the stories do not speculate on this. And who can be surprised if the threat of further rejection and sentence to prison—with memories perhaps of the orphanage and that first rejection by his parents—were too much? 

He was charged with second degree sexual assault against a 17 year old youth, and neither his past nor clinical depression can excuse that. But why should an attractive, accomplished man choose a semicomatose minor as an outlet for his sexual needs, rather than forming an adult relationship? Why too should a successful musician and socialite choose to importune for anonymous sex in a park in New York? Could it be due to a deep sense of shame? A feeling that each was unworthy of a loving relationship? A feeling so strong that they both felt they needed to be caught and punished? Were they both unable to express their sexuality in a more fulfilling way because they had been given a message that relationships between two people of the same sex are wrong? And is that same message and the feeling that goes with it being given to others? 

This message, this assumption, pervades every aspect of life, and is enshrined in law. Consenting sexual acts between two men are illegal in, for example, a locked bedroom of a house shared with others—because it is regarded as public and such acts have only been decriminalised in private. The European courts have turned down an appeal to obtain the same travel concessions enjoyed by heterosexual employees’ partners for same sex partners of employees of a travel company. As gay couples we do not have the same taxation status or pension rights as heterosexuals. And although at 16 heterosexuals can consent to have sex with someone, we have to think about it carefully for another two years. 


A bill is before parliament to equalise the age of consent for sexual intercourse to 16 for all. The fact that the person whom Fashanu was accused of assaulting was 17 is not relevant here. Forcing sexual attention on those who do not or cannot consent to it is wrong and is not open for debate. The vote is about equality and whether there should be equal treatment under the law or discrimination. 


“We have a responsibility to address homophobia”



One of the objectives in The Health of the Nation is to reduce suicide rates. If low esteem, depression, and suicide are consequences of stigmatisation then we have a responsibility to address homophobia and inequality in society at large and within the medical profession. My own profession, psychiatry, with its history of pathologising homosexuality, owes a debt of redress. The British Medical Association and the Royal College of Psychiatrists have given their blessing to the campaign for equalisation of age for sexual consent, although they have not been active in their support. 

As doctors we are well placed to help the public make a clear distinction between sexual deviation and paedophilia on the one hand and sexual orientation and lifestyle on the other. We can clarify issues of consent with our specialist experience of the concept within medicine. Other professional bodies, such as the Royal College of Nursing, have disciplinary procedures for dealing with prejudice, including homophobia, at work—why can’t the General Medical Council do the same? As individuals we should deal with ignorant or bigoted remarks by colleagues rather than let them pass as quaint eccentricities. And perhaps what would make the most difference would be if more of us who are gay or lesbian doctors, ordinary, productive people, not tragically flawed, stood up to be counted and seen. Like Fashanu.