Featured events


7-9 September 2012
Brussels Games
Brussels

Brussels Gay Sports will offer a weekend of fun and fairplay in the capital of Europe, with volleyball, swimming, badminton, and tennis, as well as fitness and hiking.

Learn more HERE.
26-28 October 2012
QueergamesBern
Bern, Switzerland

The success of the first edition of the QueergamesBern proved the need for an LGBT multisport event in Switzerland. This year will be even bigger, with badminton, bowling, running, walking, floorball.

Learn more HERE.
17-20 January 2013
Sin City Shootout
Las Vegas
The 7th Sin City Shootout will feature softball, ice hockey, tennis, wrestling, basketball, dodgeball, bodybuilding and basketball.

Learn more HERE.

13-16 June 2013
IGLFA Euro Cup
Dublin
After this year's edition in Budapest at the EuroGames, the IGLFA Euro Cup heads to Dublin for 2013, hosted by the Dublin Devils and the Dublin Phoenix Tigers.

Learn more HERE.

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

A message to French participants in Gay Games VIII from the minister of sport

Rama Yade, the French secretary of sport, is the patron of Equipe France, and has put her money where her mouth is with a generous grant that allows the more than 400 French athletes present in Cologne to wear with pride the colors of France, and the FSGL's message: "against all forms of discrimination, let's play sport together".

Here is Madame Yade's message to the members of Equipe France:

I share a fundamental conviction with the organizers of the Gay Games, and those who participate in them: the belief that sport has virtues of exemplarity, and that it can change the way others look at us, and the way we look at ourselves. Whether individual or team sports, recreational or competitive, sport should and must be at its core a school for respect for oneself and for others. Sport is a moral value, and more than perhaps any other human activity, levels the playing field.

In this respect, an event of this size, which welcomes athletes of all sexual orientations, plays an important role in demonstrating that gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals are also great athletes, who can, at the Gay Games, express their personality more freely than in the traditional sporting world.

But these Gay Games, of course, also carry a symbolic impact. Let's not be mistaken: they are not there to organize an insularity, a defensive retreat from the world. Their goal is to publicly affirm the existence, the visibility, and the pride of a minority that remains the victim of great discrimination throughout the world. Sport is a mirror of society: let us break the stereotypes we find there.

The Gay Games are not the be all and end all of the fight against homophobia: their existence is merely the proof that discrimination persists. The end of the need for Gay Games would mean that discrimination based on sexual orientation has been eradicated. But the Gay Games remain today a means to change opinions and support those who suffer the consequences of prejudice on a daily basis.

This is why I'm proud today that the Ministry of Sport has made a commitment to encourage the French delegation to the Cologne Gay Games by means of financial and moral support for the Fédération sportive gaie et lesbienne which leads it.

Good luck in Cologne!

-- Rama Yade, secretary of state for sport

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