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.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

ESPN's Glass Wall report on women coaches

ESPN uses the anniversary of Title IX to look at the disturbing lack of women in US college coaching (h/t Outsports):

In the end, though, those hurdles are less daunting than two others, more entrenched and insidious, that women have faced over the past four decades: homophobia and blatant sexism. "When you look at the decline in the percentage of women coaches," says Helen Carroll, of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, "sexual orientation has a lot to do with it."

Homophobia has haunted women's sports throughout the Title IX era, forcing coaches to stay closeted for fear of losing their jobs, or at least recruits. In some quarters, coaches have been known to signal quietly to prospects or their parents that a competing program is run by a lesbian, in an effort to turn the recruit away.
To this day, there is only one out lesbian coach in Division I basketball, Portland State's Sherri Murrell. In a 2009 paper on negative recruiting, Carroll and Pat Griffin, of the Women's Sports Foundation, wrote, "The psychological toll of silence, denial and secrecy results in a climate of fear and hostility that many lesbian, gay and bisexual coaches endure in order to pursue their profession. Others simply choose to leave the profession."

It's not only established coaches who check out. Former players often decide the hassle isn't worth it. Two former collegiate stars, Sue Wicks of Rutgers and Abby Conklin of Tennessee, told ESPN The Magazine in 2011 that homophobia still casts a wide shadow over the sidelines. In the same story, former WNBA star Kate Starbird stressed that she wouldn't consider coaching because she refused to be closeted. "I didn't want to live my life that way," she said.

Read in full HERE.

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