CNN story on the Chosen Few

(If you don't see the video player above, click HERE, or view it on CNN.com HERE.)

Johannesburg, South Africa (CNN) -- The training pitch is a dusty patch of ground used by the local police force as a car park, and the club house is located in a former women's prison that held Winnie Mandela captive during the apartheid era.

Two of the team's players have been victims of "corrective" rapes -- Soccer City, this is not.

The facilities of the Johannesburg-based "Chosen Few" lesbian football club could not be further from those of the glamorous teams that play in the 2010 World Cup, but the first such tournament to be held in Africa has proved inspirational to the members of this local squad.

Ntombi "Khampi" Futhi used to play defense for her side, but after South Africa's "Bafana Bafana" national team kicked off the opening game of soccer's biggest event at the city's new 90,000-seater arena a few miles away, she has turned her focus to netting goals.

New York Times coverage of Chosen Few soccer team

The New York Times has a great video story on South Africa's Chosen Few women's soccer team. Chosen Few will be playing in Cologne, thanks to the financial support of Dick Uyvari and his late partner Joe LaPat.

Help share the Gay Games with men and women like the players of the Chosen Few by donating to the Gay Games Scholarship fund HERE.

View the video HERE.

Chosen Few profile in The Guardian

From The Guardian's World Cup coverage:

Lerato Marumolwa is preparing for her personal World Cup. Next month she and her colleagues from "The Chosen Few", South Africa's only openly lesbian football team are flying to Cologne, Germany to take part in this summer's Gay Games.

Considering the Rainbow Nation's much praised post apartheid constitution was the first in the world to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, Marumolwa and the rest of the Chosen Few endure a depressingly tough time. They train in their native Johannesburg, on dusty, dirty, puddle-riddled waste ground only a few hundred metres from that city's constitutional court – and bastion of gay rights.

The 21-year-old Marumolwa fully appreciates the irony. "It's the only spot we could find to train," she says. "We tried many places but no one wanted us, they didn't let us stay. In the townships we get discriminated against, we get raped, we get beaten up, people swear at us."

Marumolwa's sanctuary is the Chosen Few. Founded in 2004 by the Forum for the Empowerment of Women (Few) it is the focal point of the 25 woman squad's lives and, perhaps appropriately, has its office in Johannesburg's former apartheid era women's prison, now mainly a museum, situated next to the constitutional court.

"Few is my family," Marumolwa says. "It's a space where I feel at home. I can be myself. My team-mates all come from different backgrounds but when we are together we are one big family. At home we have to watch what we do, watch what we say. We don't go around at night so Few is a good space for us."

She is a star of a team that won bronze medals at the 2006 Gay Games in Chicago and the 2008 International Gay and Lesbian FA Cup in London and trains religiously twice a week. Every session begins after a burst of singing and dancing and concludes with a group huddle followed by a recitation of the Lord's Prayer.

The squad certainly felt their prayers were answered four years ago when, after a three-month immigration wrangle, the US authorities finally allowed this group of unmarried and largely unemployed township women to fly into Chicago and take their place in the tournament. For most of the party, who are not paid to play but receive funding to cover expenses largely from overseas, it was the first time they had travelled abroad.

Continue reading HERE.

"Chosen Few" on BBC blog

"Chosen Few... Chosen Few... Chosen Few." A dozen women are shouting out the name of their football team on a scrap of wasteland just north of Johannesburg's city centre. Tumi is leading the chant. She's now the striker and obvious star of South Africa's only openly lesbian team.

"We're all lesbians so I feel like I'm with my family. They always put a smile on my face," says Tumi, breaking off from a twice-weekly practice session. "In township teams lesbians are not allowed." We talk about the World Cup. The women have mixed feelings - happy it's coming to South Africa, frustrated that they can't afford tickets, and angry that women's football is not given the same high profile.

After two energetic hours, Tumi takes off her boots and sets off for home. "I always worry. When I'm walking the streets I watch left and right. I'm not just a woman, I'm also lesbian, and there is no justice here."

The man she says assaulted her is still living in the neighbourhood, and although she's reported him to the police, they have yet to arrest him. "The police don't take it seriously," she says. "He's threatened me again and says he knows where I live. I don't have any protection. I don't have weapon. I don't have anything. I'm just me. Just me."

Read the full article and view the video HERE.

Chosen Few: Belles of the Ball

In the courtyard of the former Johannesburg Women's Gaol, the girls slip into their long socks and studs. This is their improvised changing room -- a few plastic chairs dragged from a nearby office and a locker crudely sprayed in red and grey, matching the bricks and corrugated iron blocks of the former prison. Once booted up, the squad jogs down Constitution Hill to a piece of wasteland between the BP petrol station on Empire Road and a car park. In the middle of this metropolis of eight million people they begin their training.

There are a dozen of them -- husky, many with shaved heads. The patchwork of their miscellaneous clothes brightens against the red soil. Pinky Zulu, the captain, is sandwiched between "Feminist leader" and "Fighting against patriarchy and homophobia". These slogans printed on their shirts offer clues to spectators.

These are the members of the Chosen Few. They are women from Alex, Hillbrow, Soweto, Katlehong and other townships; butch, dyke, femme -- they are lesbians and footballers, one and all.

To be chosen for the Chosen Few candidates must "be out", have passed the physical aptitude trials and be committed to defending homosexual and women's rights.

Continue reading HERE.

Memories of the Chosen Few

Read the full post on Keph Senett's Personal SA blog:

Off to one side was the South African women’s team, the Chosen Few. They’d been the subject of many conversations, having invited the attention of players from both divisions for their practice of approaching the field for their games singing and dancing in unison. It was an impressive display, both beautiful and intimidating.

Now, the team was standing in a wide circle socializing with each other and whoever wanted to step into the ring. I did.

Within moments I realized I’d inserted myself into a discussion about the consequences of being lesbian in the townships of South Africa. The women spoke in turn, uninterrupted, and told everyone assembled stories of brutal violence, corrective rape, and murder. In the preceding few years, I was told, several players had been killed for being lesbian.

We were standing close, shoulder to shoulder, protective and insular, when the women from the Chosen Few began to clap and sing, pulling each other into the centre one by one. Concentrating on matching the rhythm of the group, I slapped my palms together and felt honored and ridiculous and lucky and amazed all at once. By choosing to play, these women were effectively “coming out” into extreme hostility and risking terrible violence, even death. I didn’t know what to do with this information – I still don’t – except to put my hands together and share that fleeting moment in the alley.

~

The Chosen Few is run by the Forum for Empowerment of Women (FEW). They won a bronze medal at the Gay Games Tournament in Chicago in 2006, and again in 2008 at the IGLFA Championships in London. The team has been awarded a Gay Games scholarship to handle travel and accommodation expenses so they can compete in the 2010 Gay Games in Cologne, Germany, but they still require further financial assistance to obtain gear and handle other associated expenses.

To help, contact Dikeledi Sibanda at 0113391867 or 0765123874 or e- mail project1@few.org.za

Help the Chosen Few help themselves

SOUTH AFRICA -- 23 March 2010: In a bid to raise funds for the Gay Games World Tournament in Cologne, Germany, The Chosen Few, a lesbian soccer team, owned by the Forum for Empowerment of Women (FEW) will be hosting a car wash and picnic at Zoolake on Saturday 27 March and are appealing to the community at large for support.

Having received a scholarship* from the Gay Games committee which covers travel expenses and accommodation the team is still in need of a proper gear, assistance with local travelling expenses to and from training and funding for a pre tournament camp.

"Without donations there is no Chosen Few, we need support from the LGBTI community which will further motivate us to perform at our best", said Matshidiso Mofokeng, player of the Chosen Few Team.

Continue reading HERE.

*Generously financed by Dick Uyvari and the late Joe LaPat

"Chosen Few" featured in leading French LBGT monthly

The story in TETUE (the women's versio of TETU) begins: "«100% black et 100% lesbiennes», voilà le slogan de l'équipe féminine de foot de Johannesbourg qui réunit des lesbiennes pour jouer au foot et défendre la cause lgbt dans la solidarité et l'entraide. Elles tentent d'oublier grâce au foot, les violences dont elles sont souvent victimes, et la précarité. Notre envoyée spéciale TÊTUE les a rencontrées." (100% black, 100% lesbian, that's the slogan of the women's football team from Johannesburg that brings together lesbians to play football and to defend the LGBT cause with solidarity and mutual support. They hope to forget, thanks to football, the violence of which they're victims, and their economic precarity. Our reporter met them...)

Read more HERE.

Dick Uyvari and Joe La Pat keep their promise

By far the largest individual donors in the entire history of the Gay Games have been Dick Uyvari (Chicago) and his late partner Joe LaPat, whose generous support enabled an entire women's football team from South Africa, the Chosen Few, to share the experience of Gay Games VII.

This generous support earned Dick and Joe the first FGG Legacy Award for Outreach and Scholarship Support, awarded by a unanimous vote of the Federation Assembly at the 2008 Annual Meeting in Cape Town, South Africa.

In Chicago, moved by the joy of these young women present in Chicago in 2006, Uyvari and LaPat, leaders in LGBT sport on a local, national, and international level, made a promise to bring the team back to the Gay Games in 2010 in Cologne.

Since then, Dick has suffered the lost of his partner, illness, and like so many, the effects of the global economic recession. Despite these obstacles, Dick determined that the promise he made with Joe would be kept, and he took the presentation of his Legacy Award certificate as the opportunity to announce that he had just wired to the FGG the funds required to bring the Chosen Few to Cologne.

***

The FGG is honored and blessed to have friends like Dick and Joe. There are far too many in need like the Chosen Few, and far too few like Dick and Joe, willing to help. The FGG urges you to join their number, and provide whatever support you can to share the transforming power of the "Games that change the world" with the hundreds and thousands of people who can only come if you help them "Be part of it!".

Gays Games supporter Joe La Pat dies

With great sadness, the Federation of Gay Games announces the loss of Joe La Pat, a long-time supporter of the Gay Games who died suddenly and unexpectedly in his home Sunday, June 29. An Army veteran and a long-time supporter of Chicago charities, La Pat and his partner of 39 years, Dick Uyvari, were frequent backers of numerous gay organizations, including the Center on Halsted and Gay Games VII in Chicago.

When Chicago decided to re-bid for the Gay Games, Dick and Joe were among the earliest supporters, loaning seed money - in a gigantic leap of faith - so that the initial expenses could be covered. Their support could have ended there, but did not.

When Dick and Joe heard about the Chosen Few South African women's soccer team in late 2005, they offered to help underwrite scholarships for the team to attend Gay Games VII. Chosen Few's members live in Soweto, with few resources to attend an international tournament. As time moved on, it was clear that the entire GGVII scholarship program needed additional support, not just for Chosen Few, but also for the Bura team from Croatia and individual athletes from South America, Asia, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Europe, the United Kingdom, and even from parts of the United States. So Dick and Joe stepped up more than the Gay Games organizers could have hoped for to underwrite the remaining scholarships. In total, Dick and Joe provided 75% of the funding for the Gay Games scholarships.

In 1964, La Pat enlisted in the Army and served with distinction, including a tour in Germany, where he was a member of the military police.

On May 25, 1969, La Pat and Uyvari met at the Castaways bar in Milwaukee, and it was love at first sight. They were together for 39 years, until La Pat's death. They liked to comment that they met exactly five weeks before the Stonewall Riots in New York that sparked the modern gay-rights movement.

As a couple, La Pat and Uyvari were key supporters of the Center on Halsted building campaign. They also were part of the Strike Against AIDS bowling benefits, and made available a property that became the first location used by Chicago House, a residence for people with AIDS. In 2006, they were critical financial supporters of Gay Games VII, underwriting the scholarship program that helped to bring athletes from around the world. They also helped retire the Gay Games debt by creating a matching fund.

“Without the support of Dick and Joe, the Gay Games could not have brought in athletes from South Africa, Croatia and beyond,” said Tracy Baim, co vice-chair of the Chicago Gay Games board, and a friend of the couple. “Joe was always the quiet one, but when he heard the story of the South African soccer team, he became a passionate advocate to bring them to the U.S. He believed strongly in the mission of the Gay Games, and he and Dick were our biggest allies.”

“He always was a pillar of support in the background that allowed me to be the front guy,” Uyvari said. “Without him I could not have done any of the things I did.”

His generosity for family, friends and community, was limitless, even when it meant personal sacrifice for him. He was a gracious host, “an All-American man who also loved taking care of the home,” Uyvari said. “He loved gardening, cooking, anything around the house.”

A public memorial will be held on Saturday, July 26, from noon to 3 p.m. at Misericordia Home, 6300 N. Ridge Ave. in Chicago.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the South African soccer team and Scholarship Program at: http://teamchicago.org/federation.html. Donations can also be made to the Center on Halsted at: http://www.centeronhalsted.org/.

For a 2007 video interview with La Pat, see http://www.chicagogayhistory.org/.

Source: adapted from Windy City Times text and Gay Games VII Book by Tracy Baim.