VIDEO: South Yorkshire firefighters battle back against homophobic haters

South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue said since it added a rainbow to its social media profile picture during Pride Month last June it had faced a barrage of abusive, hurtful and homophobic comments on Facebook.

Now frontline staff and senior officials have teamed up for a colourful clip in which they turn the abusers’ words against themselves.

“We fully expect the video will have a mixed reaction but some of the comments we received last year were awful and totally unacceptable,” said chief fire officer Alex Johnson, who appears in the clip wearing rainbow-striped socks.

“We wanted to let our staff, and communities know that we are proud to employ and serve them, regardless of those comments, and demonstrate that we are a genuinely inclusive organisation that values the contribution of all our staff, whatever their LGBT+ status.”

Crew manager Rebecca Savin, the South Yorkshire Fire Brigades Union LGBT rep, said she hoped the service’s stance would not only allow staff to bring their authentic selves to work but also encourage more people from the LGBT+ community to consider fire service careers.