Matthew Mitcham keynote speaker at new Australian legislator group

Gay Games Ambassador Matthew Mitcham was the keynote speaker at the first meeting of a new group of Australian Members of Parliament, as reported in the Sydney Star Observer:

The inaugural function of the Parliamentary Friends of LGBTIs was launched at the Parliament’s Mural Hall last night, with a large group of MPs and Senators turning out to show their support alongside representatives of LGBTI community organisations from across the country.

The launch was organised by Queensland Liberal MP Warren Entsch with the support of the Greens Senator Hanson-Young and Labor’s Graham Perrett.

“The purpose of this Friendship group, like all other friendship groups, is about hosting a function two or three times a year to let parliamentarians meet with particular constituencies … and be able to socially interact with their representatives and raise issues and hopefully through getting to know each other, provide an opportunity to give members and senators a much better understanding of the difficulties and some of the issues that are faced in your own communities,” Entsch told the room.

In introducing the function’s keynote speaker, Olympic diver Matthew Mitcham, Perrett told the room that Australia Post had issued a stamp to commemorate his gold medal win at the Beijing Olympics.

“But unfortunately in this house there are politicians who refuse to use those stamps still after that achievement. And why? Because Matt was one of only 11 openly gay athletes at the Beijing Olympics,” Perrett said.

Keep reading HERE.

And read Matthew's post on this event HERE.

3 October 2011 / Hudson Taylor and Ben Cohen at University of Pennsylvania

News from an event from Penn Athletes and Allies Tackling Homophobia and Heterosexism that will take place at the University of Pennsylvania's Houston Hall of Flags from 7pm to 10pm on Monday 3 October:

Don't want to rock the boat? Afraid you can't make a difference? Well, think again. Remember, things don't just get better, you have to make them better.

If you want to help create a more accepting athletic community here at Penn, save the date and join PATH (Penn Athletes and Allies Tackling Homophobia) as we host two prominent straight LGBT athlete allies--Ben Cohen (former professional UK rugby player) and Hudson Taylor (three-time NCAA All-American wrestler and current wrestling coach at Columbia University).

Come see both of them address the importance of letting heterosexual athletes know that it is "okay" to have gay teammates, as well as of conveying to out/closeted athletes that they will not face negative consequences as an open LGBT athlete. The two will also address specific steps we can take in order to begin such change and begin the long road toward eliminating the homophobia and bullying that exists in the athletic community.

At the end of the event, we will open up the floor to questions, so come prepared! If you would rather your question be asked anonymously, you can email it to us at jmagnes@sas.upenn.edu. Hope to see everyone there!

Compete seeks nominations for 2011 LGBT Athlete of the Year

Compete, The Gay Sports Magazine is now accepting nomination for our 2011 Athlete of the Year. Winner will be announced at Compete 2011 Sports Diversity Awards in Phoenix, Ariz. Details HERE.

17 September 2011 / Head of the Cuyahoga rowing competition in Cleveland

Every year the Cleveland Rowing Foundation hosts a major regatta, the Head of the Cuyahoga (HOTC), the third Saturday of September. HOTC is open to high school, collegiate and adult competition from around the country in both sweep and sculling events. The Cuyahoga River provides a unique opportunity for rowers to navigate the challenging turns of our crooked river on the two and one-half mile course. This racing distance, called a "head race," is the standard race format for regattas around the country in the Fall.

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HOTC is part of the Riverocity Weekend, highlighting the natural beauty of Cleveland's Cuyahoga River. just someone who enjoys natural beauty, the Cuyahoga River is a true gem.

This fall, three major Cleveland events -- Ingenuity Festival, Head of the Cuyahoga and The Cleveland Dragon Boat Festival - are taking place on the Cuyahoga River at the same time (Sept. 16-18). Appropriately titled "Riverocity," this weekend is a celebration of art and athleticism on the Cuyahoga River.

Ingenuity Festival
The inGENUiTY Festival is Cleveland's annual weekend-long celebration of art and technology, designed for audiences of any age and experience, staged on the lower level of the Veterans Memorial (Detroit-Superior) Bridge. +more

Cleveland Dragon Boat Festival
Watch as competitors race dragon boats during the 5th Annual Cleveland Dragon Boat Festival on Sept. 17, an event that acknowledges the connection and history dragon boats have had with the Asian culture. +more

25 May 2012 / TIP Paris International Tournament already in the works

At last weekend's Forum FSGL, the volunteers for the TIP Paris International Tournament were out in force, already wearing their 2012 tshirts. As is the case every year, the tournament will take place on Pentecost (Whitsun) weekend, which this year falls on 25-28 May.

News from Manchester: Blocks and spokes

Team Manchester swim club Northern Wave has presented a new set of diving blocks to Moss Side Leisure Centre, worth GBP 5,000 at catalogue prices. Available as a community resource for pool users, the blocks will enable club, school and community swimming galas to take place.

And following the successful Pride Games bike ride this year, a new cycling group, "Different Spokes", has been launched. More info on the group on Facebook.

New York Magazine re-asks the question "when will a gay pro [big-four, American, male] athlete come out?"

Illustration by André Carrilh

The question is hardly original, but New York Magazine returns to the tried-and-true question in a pretty thorough way. Here's a particularly interesting extract:

The biggest issue for an openly gay pro athlete would not be the “Neanderthals”: It would be the Evangelical Christians. Particularly the African-American ones. When Will Sheridan, a former basketball player at Villanova, came out in May, he said that because religion generally plays such a central role in African-American culture, many African-­American players reject homosexuality simply because the church says they should. A poll earlier this year showed that 60 percent of African-­American Baptists oppose gay marriage.

It’s not even just players: Tony Dungy, the former Colts coach who is now a commentator for NBC and an adviser to several players, has openly embraced a ban on gay marriage. “I think that religion has become a socially acceptable way to be a homophobe” [Gay Games Ambassador] Amaechi says. “I think religion has far surpassed those notions of masculinity and jock culture as the single most homophobic aspect of sports. Do I think without the religious aspect sports would move more quickly and naturally along like the rest of the culture? Yes.”

Still: An openly gay athlete is an inevitability, and his coming out may not be so difficult after all. “I can’t imagine a player being treated the way Jackie Robinson or Bill Russell was,” says Jared Max, the ESPN Radio New York morning sports personality, who came out on the air in the wake of Barkley’s comments. “I don’t think that that’s going to go on now.” So who will it be? Max thinks it’ll have to be a superstar. “It’ll have to be an All-Star,” he says. “Someone with status. Someone whose teammates will be like, ‘As long as he wins.’ ”

Buzinski agrees, but notes that in many ways, once the player comes out, he will be so embraced—not just by the sports media, but by the larger culture (it is not difficult to see the first openly gay pro athlete landing on the cover of Time magazine) that it will become difficult for a player’s team to cut or trade him. This is a funny idea. It sounds like the premise of a bad sports comedy, in which a straight player must pretend to be gay to keep his job.

Read in full HERE.

15 September 2011 / PantereSports holds talk on "Sport, homophobia and overcoming physical limitations"

Claire Harvey

Thursday, September 15 · 7:00pm - 8:30pm
Secretaria de Joventut, Generalitat de Catalunya
Calabria 147
Barcelona

Claire Harvey (Sitting Volleyball Player - UK National Team) and Louise Englefield (EGLSF Co-President) will talk about homophobia in sports and how to overcome physical limitations.

Claire Harvey was born in Chatham, Kent (GB) on 19 February 1974, the daughter of a housewife and a civil servant. A lover of sports, Claire was an active child who grew into an active woman, playing Rugby Union to the highest level.

Louise Englefield was elected two years ago to be the female co-president in the European Gay and Lesbian Sports Federation. In the UK, her homeland, she is one of the three directors of Pride Sports, a national organization for the development and equity in LGBT sports.

Presentation HERE.

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Habrá traducción simultánea en castellano.
Hi haurà traducció simultània en català.

Coming out as an athlete at the University of North Carolina

An article in the University of North Carolina student newspaper looks at athletes and coaches coming out in college and afterwards. Here's an extract:

What about the environment at UNC? For that answer, I spoke to Associate Athletic Communications Director David Lohse, who came out in 1992. “The reception was astonishing. I have nothing but really positive things to say about how people treated me,” he said. “I’m proud of the place I work.”

A bisexual UNC athlete told me that he definitely had fears before coming out, but none of them were borne out. He was glad he did because it strengthened his relationship with his teammates and helped him to integrate his identity.

Read in full HERE.

Is FIFA really investigating homophobia?

We have more doubts than our friends at AllOut, cosigners of the letter to FIFA to which Jérôme Valcke has now (more than two months later) replied, with regard to what this really means for any investigation of the lesbophobic behavior of Nigerian women's football club Eucharia Uche.

We quote:

"Thus, in the event the FIFA Disciplinary Committee considers having enough evidence to be in a position to open proceedings, it will not fail to do so with the assistance of the FIFA administration."

The request for evidence is odd, as clearly FIFA was aware of the accusations, since they responded (insufficiently) in the form of a social call by Tatjana Haenni, FIFA's head of women's competition.

We are keen to see what action is taken, and will keep our readers informed as soon as we have news.

Read all our blog posts about FIFA HERE.

FIFA Probes Homophobia in Women's Soccer

Note: the FGG received this same letter, as a co-signer of the lette of complaint with Allout. We will be publishing more soon.

Months after the Japanese national team have returned home with its first FIFA Women's World Cup title, the governing body of international soccer announced that it will investigate homophobia in the sport.

According to activist organization AllOut.org, which began a campaign to condemn homophobia in women's soccer, FIFA's secretary general Jérôme Valcke announced an investigation against Nigerian Football coach Eucharia Uche.

Source: advocate.com

Outsports top-100 moments in LGBT sports history: numbers 31-40

Here's a reminder of the latest ten stories in the Outsports series:

Over the rest of the summer we will release our list of the 100 most important moments in gay-sports history. We have focused on specific moments, whether they be a few minutes or a day, that have shaped the course of our history; Many of the faces of those moments will be familiar to our readers.

We focused on what we consider to be the “gay-sports movement.” There were certainly amazing gay and lesbian athletes before the Stonewall riots in 1969, but there wasn’t a push for gay equality in sports until after that fateful day in New York City. Our moments range from July 1, 1969 to July 1, 2011.

We note in this group several Gay Games-related entries: Gay Games III, of course, but also Betty Baxter, a board member of those Gay Games, and the founding of gay rodeo, which will be part of the Gay Games for the first time in Cleveland+Akron at Gay Games 9 in 2014.

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31) NBC airs ‘He’s here, he’s Weir’ / 2006 / Olympics
32) Brendan Lemon reveals MLB boyfriend / 2001 / baseball
33) Mark Bingham killed in Sept. 11 attacks / 2001 / rugby
34) Canadian volleyball coach Betty Baxter fired / 1982 / volleyball
35) First gay rodeo / 1976 / rodeo
36) Jeremy Shockey says he doesn’t want gay teammate / 2002 / NFL
37) Eric Anderson’s runner attacked / 1996 / cross-country
38) Gay Games III Vancouver is first outside San Francisco / 1990 / Gay Games
39) ESPN hires LZ Granderson / 2004 / sports media
40) John Damien sues over dismissal / 1975 / horse racing

FGG, ESSDA, and NASSPDA express support of Chaz Bono

Chaz Bono, a trans man born as Chastity Bono, the daughter of Cher and Sonny Bono, has been cast by American TV network ABC for its dance competition "Dancing With the Stars". The presence of a trans person has raised the hackles of transphobic persons, who are protesting his presence (more info HERE).

The Federation of Gay Games and its two international LGBT DanceSport member organizations ESSDA and NASSPDA have written a letter of support to Chaz Bono:

We are writing to support you as you face criticism from transphobic bigots relative to your participation in the "Dancing With the Stars" television competition.

We represent the North American Same-Sex Partner Dance Association, the European Same-Sex Dance Association, and the international Federation of Gay Games. We and our members represent thousands of lesbian, gay, bi, trans and allied dancers who organize and compete in the dozens of same-sex dance competitions held each year.

We firmly believe in DanceSport as an athletic pursuit for health and well-being of the mind and body, in the artistic expression it provides, and in the community of support and solidarity it creates. We hope that you will be able to discover the joys of dancing, despite the virulent attacks from what we hope are in fact only a few close-minded persons.

We wish you success in the competition, and hope that, if you come to love DanceSport as much as we do, you will join us in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2014 for DanceSport at Gay Games 9.

In any case, we are ready and willing to offer help from ourselves and our members.

Keph Sennett asks: Where do transgender athletes fit into sports?

Keph Senett reports from the human rights conference held at the recent North American Outgames in Vancouver:

“SPREAD OUT!” their coach shouts encouragingly, turning away from the players to share her laughter with the moms and dads on the sideline. There might be something more adorable than six year-olds playing soccer, but I don’t know what it is.

At this age, girls and boys are pretty much the same: they wear matching jerseys and socks, and run after the ball with identical tireless enthusiasm. On the field, the red team moves en masse toward the blue team’s goal, and when a kid out in front stumbles and falls, they all do.

Their game may need work, but their concept of team is perfect.

All of this will change in another few years. As puberty hits, the boys will be funneled into programs with funding, and the girls will be encouraged to take up tetherball. Even those girls who will be able to find organizational support in quality training camps, sponsorships, and athletic scholarships will only be able to achieve the top of their sport in the women’s division.

Keep reading HERE.

Roger Brigham looks at upcoming San Francisco wrestling tournament

Roger Brigham devotes his Bay Area Reporter column this week to the Wrestlers Without Borders tournament later this month. Here's an extract:

The attraction of the WWB Cup being combined with a major street fair has lured Australians to the event for the first time. It is believed that four Australians, buoyed by their success last year at the Gay Games in Germany, will compete, along with sizeable contingents from New York City, Philadelphia, San Diego, and Los Angeles. Two newcomers to WWB are also expected to make a showing: Carlin Yetts of Columbus, Ohio, who is starting his own wrestling club to compete in Gay Games IX in Cleveland; and Olympic hopeful Akil Patterson. Patterson, a heavyweight Greco-Roman specialist, is not expected to compete but will officiate and may participate in exhibitions.

Learn more about the tournament HERE.

FGG co-president to speak on women in sport

This Sunday FGG member organization FSGL will be holding its third LGBT Sport Forum, during which a panel discussion will be held on the theme of "Women, sports, and lesbophobia". Emy Ritt, co-president of the FGG will be taking part, alongside Stéphanie Arc of NGO SOS Homophobie, sociologist Philippe Liotard, and Christelle Foucault, president of the FSGL. Also participating will be the feminist group "La Barbe" and the FSGL women's group, "Sous le short des filles".

Info HERE.

Coming soon in Cleveland: Upgrades to International Exposition Center (I-X Center)

From Cleveland Meetings, news on some projects just opened or soon to open in Cleveland:

International Exposition Center (I-X Center) – Upgrades (2011+)

As it enters its 25th anniversary season, the I-X Center plans to invest another $25 million to $35 million over the next few years – including nearly $3 million this year – to upgrade visitors amenities and improve traffic flow and parking. Near-term enhancements include upgrading food and restroom facilities, improving traffic and visitor flow by adding a third lane to the main access road, and expanding parking areas and upgrading with enhanced lighting.

www.ixcenter.com

Awards, honors and prizes galore!

A little round up of some awards news...

Two Gay Games athletes are among the four finalists of the National Lampoon Twitter Awards, in the "Best Gay" category (ahem): Jack Mackenroth and George Takei;

It's not too late to vote!

You can vote HERE (no need for a Twitter account).

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Sydney Convicts (rugby) and Penny Gulliver (martial arts) have been nominated for Honour Awards.

Now in their fifth year, the Honour Awards are an annual event which recognise outstanding achievements within or contributions to NSW's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) community. The awards are also a gala fundraising event for ACON, NSW's and Australia's largest GLBT health and HIV/AIDS organisation.
The 25 finalists were selected from over 100 nominations received across six categories covering the business, health, education, community, legal, political, media and cultural sectors.

The winners will be presented with a range of gifts and prizes at a gala ceremony and cocktail party at The Ivy in Sydney on Thursday 29 September.

11 November 2011 / Icons Football Cup in Budapest

From 11-13 November 2011, ICONS Calcio and FRIGO Budapest are organizing this 5-a-side Football tournament as a fundraising event in for the Eurogames 2012. The collected money will be used to invite LGBT players from Eastern Europe to the EuroGames 2012 Football tournament. The tournament is sanctioned and supported by the IGLFA.

Budapest is rich in UNESCO World Heritage sites like the view of the Danube embankments, the Buda Castle District, Andrássy Avenue with Heroes’ Square and the Millennium Underground Railway.

For further information please visit the tournament website at HERE.

22 October 2011 / Justin Fashanu Cup in Melbourne

Justin Fashanu Cup
Saturday, October 22 · 1:00pm - 3:00pm
Quarries Park- Soccer Pitch
Ramsden Street
Clifton Hill, Victoria, Australia


Come support the Melbourne Rovers and Sydney Rangers.

The game is played to commemorate Justin Fashanu who was the first professional footballer to come out. There is no place in sport for Homophobia.

The Rovers and the Rangers have won the cup once each. One team will take the lead.

Looking back at Mark Bingham on the 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001

Alice Hoagland and Mark Bingham

From a story on Yahoo about Mark Bingham:

That’s one of the reasons [Bingham's mother Alice] Hoagland has become the spiritual force behind the Bingham Cup -- a rugby tournament that’s become the “World Cup of gay rugby,” as she describes it. Hoagland feels the sport helped shape her son into the person he became, and she wants others to enjoy the sport as much as Bingham did. The cup started in 2002 with less than 10 teams. Now, 40 to 50 teams participate in the biennial event, which alternates between happening in the United States and the United Kingdom.

Members of the San Francisco Fog, a club that Bingham helped found in 2001, gave Hoagland a team jacket bearing the nickname “Mom” embroidered across the front.

“I may have lost a son but I’ve gained a very huge family and it makes me feel good every time I see them,” she says.

Read in full HERE.

Charley Sullivan: Coaching while out

Outsports publishes the first-person story of Charley Sullivan, rowing coach at the University of Michigan. We particularly like his closing appeal: "And for me, I’m here, I’m queer and I’m a hell of a good coach for it. To other coaches, come on out and play, the weather can be just fine if you make it so and choose the right places to invest your energies. And you just may find yourself being a better and more fulfilled coach than you’ve ever imagined."

Two decades of openly queer college coaching, or, how my both being out of the closet and unapologetically gay has helped make my teams winners.

Charley Sullivan
Associate Head Coach, Men’s Rowing
University of Michigan

This is not a coaching coming out story; it’s a coaching while already being out story, which is, perhaps, a different animal altogether.

I’m a gay college coach who’s been out my whole going-on-20-year career. When Dan Woog wrote about me in his groundbreaking book Jocks in 1997, I’d already been coaching at the University of Michigan for seven years. In the time I’ve been at Michigan, (with a three-year stop at Eastern Michigan University as their first head coach of women’s rowing, and several years teaching high school), Head Coach Gregg Hartsuff and I have built the Michigan men’s rowing team into one of the top programs in the country.

Meet the Gay Games 9 Steering Committee

The Gay Games 9 Steering Committee brings together members of the host organization CSEC and the Federation of Gay Games.

The message from this video produced by Vision Video is:

All you women: Game On!

Happy birthday to Paul Mart

Paul Mart, one of the last remaining board members from Gay Games I in 1982, is celebrating his 93rd birthday today. Our best wishes for a happy birthday to Paul, one of the greatest supporters of the Gay Games movement, and a multi-medal winner in Gay Games competitions (despite some unconventional and non-regulation gear)!

For Woman Around Town, Cleveland is a plum

"Woman Around Town" suggests Cleveland as a great destination for a short and affordable trip. Among the places to visit was a new one for us: "Curated by president and pilot Connie Luhta, International Women’s Air & Space Museum educates you about the history of aviation, the race to space, and the impressive understated role of women in it."

Among the dining options listed, our favorite is "Happy Dog with its gourmet hotdogs and fifty-topping choice".

The blog points out the wide choice of outdoor sports activities, as well as entertainment venues including Sandusky, with its ferries to Put In Bay, and the amusement parks of Cedar Point: "Deemed the best amusement park in the world by Amusement Today for the past thirteen years, Cedar Point is located in Sandusky, a narrow peninsula jutting into Lake Erie, offering a mile-long white sand beach and six resorts in addition to over 75 thrilling rides. Among them are the famous 320-foot-tall Millennium Force, the twisting Maverick and the new 301-foot-tall Wind Seeker which will spin the riders in open swings right by the water with the best view of sunset ever."

BBC Radio Interview Do gay people still need separate events?

Blogspot has a new editing tool which makes it easy to see all our posts that for one reason or another were never published. Here's one from 2009:

It seems the education of the media is still very important. In the BBC Radio show "World Have Your Say", several people were interviewed about the future of big Gay Sports Events. The question was do we still need a Gay Games event. The host was very friendly, but she clearly did not have any background on the Gay Games Movement.

Fortunately, Lou Hart, Roger Brigham, Kelly Stevens, Dan Woog, and Pat Griffin were part of the show and able to say a resounding YES to Gay Games. The audio presentation is just under 34 minutes including a break for BBC News [audio no longer available, but the comments are interesting].

http://worldhaveyoursay.wordpress.com/2009/07/28/do-gay-people-still-need-separate-events/

Out lesbian boxer sets sights on the Olympics

We received a link to a story about Patricia Manuel in the Los Angeles Times, but couldn't do a post because the article was behind a paywall. So we were pleased to see a post on the Wide Rights blog that links to this article in Long Beach GazettesSports.com:

You should have heard the story of Patricia Manuel back in 2009. That was the year that the bruising boxer, then 24 years old, impressed in a quality showing at the Continental Championships, defeated the British lightweight champion in London and won the U.S. Nationals title. For the fourth time. It was a landmark year for a rising star, and heads began to turn.

Manuel started training with the best in the business, and undefeated pro fighter Javier Molina dubbed the slugger "Peanut" because of her shaved head. But even with impressive accolades and an amateur record that now stands at 47-12, few outside the tight-knit boxing world took notice. "It's annoying when you succeed and the only ones noticing are the people you already see every day," she says. "If no one knows who you are, then what do promoters want you for?"

So Peanut kept her amateur status, putting her professional dreams on hold. These days she works two jobs to pay her way through training and rehab, but Manuel says that remaining amateur was "a no-brainer." Just a few weeks after that decision, women's boxing became an official event for the 2012 London Olympics, for the first time since 1904.

"This time they're going to see a whole different beast," she says. Manuel will have her chance at the spotlight, and could very well become the first woman ever to represent the United States as an Olympic boxer.

The opportunity also strikes a personal chord. Manuel describes herself as an out butch lesbian, and proud of it. She decries recent hate crimes, regularly works with the non-profit Brown Boi Project and hopes to one day start her own organization to assist the LGBTQ community. A boost in exposure could create a new platform for the Golden Gloves winner to serve as a role model outside the ring.

Keep reading HERE.

Coming soon in Cleveland: Kalihari Indoor Waterpark convention center expansion

From Cleveland Meetings, news on some projects just opened or soon to open in Cleveland:

Kalahari Indoor Waterpark Resort – Convention Center Expansion
(December 2011)

Kalahari Indoor Waterpark Resort in Sandusky will premiere a $22 million convention center expansion. After the groundbreaking, which occurred in March, Kalahari’s expansion will more than double the size of their current convention center – from 95,000 square feet to 215,000 square feet, and increase its meeting capacity from 2,200 to 5,200 people.

kalahariresorts.com

"Changing the Game" TV documentary on LGBT sport

In The Life is a documentary series on the gay experience broadcast on the US public television stations. In September they are featuring an episode on LGBT issues in sports, including contributions from Pat Griffin, Ben Cohen, Hudson Taylor, Jeff Sheng, and Gay Games Ambassador Brian Sims:
Professional athletes are models of strength and endurance, and heroes to the young athletes who look up to them. Unfortunately, the macho and homophobic world of sports doesn't breed model behavior. IN THE LIFE examines the message homophobic athletes send to young people on courts and fields across the country, and speaks with allies in professional sports who are standing up to put an end to it. Then, we follow a gay teenager on his journey from homelessness to college and meet the mentors who provide support on his way.

North Americans can find the show in their local listing, and everyone can view it below:

16 September 2011 / Registration to Panteresports still open

Registration for PANTERESPORTS 2011 is still open! We're looking forward seeing you in Barcelona from 16-18 September 2011!

Late registration fees will apply as of 9 September, so register now! (Note that the tennis tournament will take place next weekend, 9-11 September.)

You are welcome to join us in the biggest LGBT sports event in southern Europe, celebrating its 5th edition.

Three days filled with sports, cultural events, parties, sun and sea by the Mediterranean.


Get more information HERE