Thank you, Joe Root – you have just made the lives of thousands of gay teenagers immeasurably better

There’ll be a fourteen-year-old boy somewhere in England who wants to carry Joe Root aloft into his school playground, ‘Have that bullies! The England cricket captain’s got my back’

We’ve all experienced it. That moment someone cuts you down, in jest or in spite, and it’s only some time afterwards that you consider how better you might have handled your response. From the workplace to the sports field, it’s a challenge in any situation of heightened tension to have the right clarity of thought to respond appropriately.

Joe Root’s actions in St Lucia demonstrated how to affect a brilliant, calm and direct response to Shannon Gabriel after it’s alleged, he used homophobic language to put the England cricket captain off his stride as he built towards his sixteenth Test century.

Root responded to Gabriel, “Don’t use it as an insult. There’s nothing wrong with being gay.”

As a gay sports journalist, watching this response set off my inner monologue’s Handel’s Messiah "Hallelujah" button. I think we’re all born with one. This is not just one cricketer responding politely to a bit of low-grade sledging. This is the England captain telling a West Indies fast-bowler that his insult-dar is entirely off kilter and in doing so, spelling out his clear opposition to homophobia in a country where there is still a 10-year prison sentence for any same-sex sexual activity between men.

Root is keen to downplay the incident, excusing Gabriel as being an “emotional guy” trying to win a Test match. There’ll be a fourteen-year-old boy somewhere in England who wants to carry Joe Root aloft into his school playground, “Have that bullies! The England cricket captain’s got my back.”

Former Rugby World Cup winner Ben Cohen has campaigned against bullying in all it’s forms. On the Root incident he told me, “Joe Root speaking out like that has just given the support and ammunition to a young man coming to terms with his sexual orientation. To have someone say that is a powerful thing. It can give someone hope, it can bring someone back from the brink because he’s in such a powerful position.”

Cohen continued, “We know outside the political arena, sport has the biggest power to drive a cultural change. We see that with Ronaldo having a different haircut, someone biting someone – it’s replicated on the Monday. That’s the power of sport. For someone like Joe Root to say what he’s said is huge.”

Quite right too and the fact that the England skipper is not gay himself is another reason to be cheerful. Straight allies to the LGBT community, such as Joe Root in moments like this or Ben Cohen, bring greater resonance to combatting homophobic slurs simply because they are not standing up for themselves but for others.

On a personal note, I’ve played touch rugby to international level. Last year I experienced a coach use the word gay in a derogatory way more than once where the word poor would have been the preferred substitute. Despite being a confident bloke, it took until it had happened a couple of times before I spoke up. The most heartening moment arose when my straight teammates were the next ones to call it out. Now I knew that the perpetrator was and is not homophobic. I also knew that he was educated enough to know better. He was being lazy and provocative for effect. But there were young athletes in earshot who would not have known that and it’s the effect of hearing such negative associations that can do the most harm. I’m pleased to say he was called out enough times that it caused a change in behaviour.

I suspect there will be a pocket of supposedly tolerant people out there who will think that this championing of Root is over-the-top. They may see it as the LGBT community grabbing any opportunity to once again wave their rainbow flags when “we all know being gay is alright now, stop banging on about it”.

The truth is, while high profile religious sportsmen like Australian rugby player Israel Folau comment that gay people will likely go to hell and West Indies cricketer Shannon Gabriel says whatever he says to draw Root’s admirable riposte, there is work to do to combat any active or passive comments that promote fear and distress in young people.

Only when it stops on the television, radio and sports field will it stop in the playground and workplace. There is every reason to champion Joe Root. There’s nothing wrong with being gay.