A “long overdue” project has been launched by UK Sport to improve gender diversity across elite sport.
It aims to more than double the number of high-performance female coaches by the Paris Olympics in 2024.
As it stands, 10% of coaching positions across UK Sport-funded British Olympic and Paralympic programmes are held by women.
The government agency aims to increase that to 25% within four years as part of a new leadership programme.
Paula Dunn (Para-athletics) and Mel Marshall (swimming) will be among a group of leading coaches who will guide other women as part of the scheme. More
20 November is Transgender Day of Remembrance and with that in mind we have chosen Annie Wallace as our Diversity Champion of the Month.
Annie is an actor from Aberdeen. A former National Youth Theatre member, she graduated from the Manchester Metropolitan School of Theatre in 2004 and has appeared in many theatre productions. As well as being a performer, Annie writes and records music and is a skilled sound recordist and designer.
Annie is a patron of Mermaids a charity supporting trans and gender diverse children, young people and their families. Mermaids started small but has now evolved into one of the UK’s leading LGBTQ+ charities.
On 29 October 2015, Annie made history by becoming the first transgender person to play a regular transgender character in a British soap opera when she debuted as school headteacher, Sally St. Claire in Channel 4’s Hollyoaks.
Since starting in Hollyoaks, she has been regularly listed in the prestigious Rainbow List, Pride Power List, Diva Power List, and the USA OUT100, as one of the country’s most influential LGBT people.
She is a staunch supporter of transgender children, young people and their families. Her advocacy has seen her appear on Celebrity Mastermind, with Mermaids as her charity of choice.
