Barely a minute had passed in Adelaide United's round-13 match against Melbourne Victory when referee Lara Lee's whistle rang out unexpectedly.

The players, confused, turned to Lee, wondering what the pause was for.

As she gestured towards the crowd behind one of the goals, her faint voice could just be heard through the pitch-side microphones: "We have to stop because of the smoke."

The broadcast camera pivoted to the crowd and the reason for the stoppage soon became clear: A group of Adelaide fans had lit several rainbow flares as part of their Pride Round display.

The multicoloured smoke poured out of handheld poles before melting into a thick, grey haze that drifted out over the field, obscuring the women players as well as the central banner that read: "Together love always wins."

It was a fitting metaphor for Adelaide's inaugural Pride Round, announced in the wake of Adelaide men's player Josh Cavallo's public coming-out late last year.

As the only openly gay male player in a top-flight football competition, Cavallo immediately shot to global stardom, supported by countless other footballers, clubs, and bodies at home and abroad.

His club received praise too for creating an environment in which Cavallo felt comfortable enough to speak his truth and lead by example. It helped orchestrate his heartfelt announcement video and shepherded him through the accompanying media and sponsorship circuits.

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It was Cavallo's bravery that inspired the club to organise its first-ever Pride Round last weekend — to make the invisible visible, to celebrate what had been kept hidden.

But there was a deeper irony to all of this, an irony encapsulated in that rainbow haze that drifted out over the Hindmarsh pitch.

Because in leaning so heavily into Cavallo's unique story — using the language of "firsts" and "onlys", and in making him the face of Australian football's LGBTQIA+ community — the discourse around the Pride Round had the unintended consequence of eclipsing the generations of women who have paved the way in this space.

Indeed, this tension — this invisible history — was noticeable even before the match had kicked off.

In the pre-game broadcast package before every A-League Women's game on Paramount+, one of the players who feature in the montage is Canberra United striker Michelle Heyman.

Heyman came out in 2010 and she was the only publicly gay Australian among more than 500 athletes at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Over the past 12 years, the former Matilda has used her platform to advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights and acceptance in football, be it through speaking tours, ambassadorial roles with Rainbow Laces, or through her fashion label MH23.

Her work led to her being named Australian LGBTI Sportsperson of the Year in 2017.

Heyman was also part of the Canberra United side that organised the A-League Women's first Pride initiative in 2014, partnering with LGBTQIA+ organisation Fair Go, Sport that helped provide rainbow socks, stickers, badges, and banners as the club celebrated its queer players, staff, and fans.

It was awkward, then, to hear various commentators and pundits describe Adelaide United as "leading the charge in the fight for equality" and Cavallo being "the first out professional footballer in Australia" last weekend.

For Heather Reid, who was CEO of Canberra's governing body, Capital Football, during the A-League Women's first Pride initiative in 2014, it was yet another reminder of the gender inequalities that not only continue to shape the present, but which are now also reshaping the past.

"We were the first football club at that level to do a diversity round. And while it got some good traction down in Canberra, I don't think it did too much elsewhere," Reid told ABC.

"I know Michelle was really disappointed not to be able to get a Pride Round this year. She wanted to do it, but for some reason it didn't happen.

"It does sit uncomfortably when a man comes out and all of a sudden there's this celebration and attention and education and messaging, and you go, 'Why hasn't that happened for women before?'"

Hidden in plain sight

LGBTQIA+ women in football sit at the difficult intersection of visibility and invisibility.

For much of its history, women's football — and women's sport more broadly — has been a space where queer women have found comfort, safety, and community, free to explore their own identities and sexualities without fear of judgement, discrimination, or abuse.

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But at the same time, while countless Australian women athletes have been open about their sexualities within the parameters of teams and their immediate communities, very few of them have broken through those walls of silence and invisibility to announce themselves publicly.

This is why players like Heyman and Matildas captain Sam Kerr feel so rare despite queer women being so common in football.

In addition, the fact that Canberra United is the only all-women's A-League club likely played a role in this invisibility, too as though its activism in this space was naturally expected by virtue of its queer women members like Reid and Heyman, and therefore not as noteworthy as if a man or a men's club took the lead.

It's a dynamic that Danielle Warby, a gender and sport researcher and co-founder of women's sport collective Siren Sport, says is tangled up in the way women's football has been only selectively covered – and sometimes outright neglected – by mainstream media in the past.

"You have this idea that women's sport is full of lesbians," Warby told ABC. "And until very recently that stereotype prevailed because there wasn't actually any media coverage.

"That's the kind of history we're erasing here, right? To talk about 'firsts' and not recognise the history and bravery of these women — because to be out back then was a massive deal — but the cameras haven't been on us, so nobody realises how far back this goes."

Like Reid, Warby recognises that the wider context of this discourse is gender inequality, and that language plays a crucial role in challenging and perpetuating these dynamics of visibility.

"I would've had no problem if Adelaide United had said it was the first men's Pride game," Warby said. "I actually didn't even know the women were part of it until they put the videos out a few days before.

"As women in sport, all we’re asking is that if you’re going to talk about 'firsts', you’re going to use that gender descriptor.

"Why are none of the women in the game being supported the way Josh [Cavallo] is? You only have to look at the Matildas – plenty of out players – but is that really celebrated? Are they being put forward to talk about Pride stuff? No. So why?

"It comes back to the women's game not having the amount of support. It's on these women to do it themselves. I'm assuming Josh is being supported by Adelaide, but where's that been for the women over the years? Why aren't any of these women that are out and proud being put on a pedestal by their clubs?

"I don't think Adelaide United intended to be disrespectful, but it's disappointing that there's been no engagement with the conversation. We work really hard to be visible in the women's side of the game and it feels like they've just gone and rendered us invisible again."

The safe side of invisibility

But this invisibility is not entirely negative.

While there may be a lack of recognition and celebration in being invisible, there is also an element of safety, and many queer women remain hesitant to come out publicly due to widespread homophobia throughout sport.

Recent controversies within the women's game have been threaded through with homophobic language and damaging tropes, making football a space of tension and anxiety as well as a space of comfort and community.

"There's still this whole attitude that we don't want to promote or celebrate lesbians in our game because then dads won't let their daughters play," Warby said.

"There's still that [homophobia]. So again, with the visibility and invisibility thing, a lot of these women are walking a tightrope of: just how much can they do?"

Reid, who has also been the subject of homophobic abuse, sees that wider context affecting many queer women's ability to follow in the footsteps of Heyman or Cavallo.

That context makes the work that has been done by queer women in football all the more important to recognise, in addition to the work by women-led LGBTQIA+ clubs across Australia such as Canberra United, The Flying Bats, the Melbourne Rovers, and the Adelaide Armpits.

"I have no problem being accused of being a lesbian because that's what I am," Reid said. 

"But there is a massive problem with being accused of being part of some underworld group like a mafia.

"And that's the way some people continue to suppress the women's game and support homophobic attitudes, and why a lot of young women just don't want to engage in it.

"They don't want to say anything because they don't want to be put in that box.

"Women's sport, and women in football in particular, have been suppressed by homophobia for a very long time. And they still continue to be.

"My own personal journey in the last few years, and the way in which I've been vilified and harassed and abused, it still persists today.

"It's the fear of backlash. There's a fear of controversy, a fear of discrimination, a fear of losing your place in the team.

"We've shifted a lot in 20 years. And there's no way that lesbians are not going to get selected for the team – you wouldn't have a team otherwise — but why isn't that something to be celebrated?"

Adelaide's inaugural Pride Round is worthy of recognition and kudos, and is an important first step to addressing the deeper homophobic biases and attitudes that make Pride rounds necessary in the first place.

However, it is also important to acknowledge that football's path towards pride has been paved by generations of women who have worked largely in the shadows, without the same structures of support, professionalism, and visibility that enabled Cavallo to announce himself to the world.

Indeed, LGBTQIA+ women have not only led the way in this particular space, but they have been crucial in growing the game as a whole.

Without women like Heyman and Kerr, Warby and Reid, and countless others throughout the decades, Australian football would not be what it has become.

As Warby neatly summarised: "You wouldn't have football without them. Full stop."