The Gay Olimpics

My grade 8 math teacher went to the 2002 Gay Games as a Judo Athlete - it's amusing to encounter him now at GLB events.

 

I don't understand why you would have to go to a seperate olympics if your gay? I read the entire thread, sorry.

 

I couldn't speak for anyone else who is going to participate or consider participating but this is a major athletic event that is inclusive enough that anyone can enter. In fact, from what I have read on their website you don't have to be GLBT to enter.
It is, however, the only event of this caliber that I know of that openly accepts transgendered. Now this obviously isn't the motivation for everyone (after all by some estimates, no more than 1 person in 350,000 believes he or she was born the wrong gender) but it is there.

I think that there is too much being read into this concept though. Go have a look at the page from my link in my earlier message. To me it looks like a chance to compete with other people some from thee top of the atheletic fields some armatures. If I can pull this off financially to be there I will be there to have a good time & enjoy the events the people, the experience. I personally like the concept of competing with GLBT cyclists (my event) partly because of the pride aspect of it, partly because I wonder how I measure up to other GLBT cyclists on this level. I ride with the Madison chapter of Different Spokes cycling club but that isn't a true measure since there are so few of us.

Here is what they say about the origins & motivation behind it.

 

Problem is, how could they prove if you were gay or not and wanted to participate in the games. A straight guy could get in there and sweep the floor with all the pansy asses there.

 

Have you ever met a lesbian?

 

Yeah. But they can't run worth a shit in army boots.

 

To begin with straights are welcome. It says so right in the welcome page. Right in the quote I pasted into my last message.

Now on top of that. I'll race you any time on bicycle. If you are a USCF Category 2 or 3 racer I will keep up with you for quite a while. Anything below that & you will be seeing my backside most of the time if you do keep up with me. Or how are you at karate? I don't study right now but I have a bag full of trophies that my kids love to drag out & show their friends that I won in tournaments from sparring. I'm just one example that happens to be a bi genderqueer. There are plenty of very fit atheletes that aren't straight. Many much better at their discipline than I am.

 

Comments like this are the very reason why the Gay Games are a good idea. I'm not athletically gifted myself, but there are lots of gay men and lesbians and bisexuals and transfolks who are very athletic. Believe me, they could sweep the floor with lots of straight boys.

 

i mean like how could you even say that? thats just so stupid. everyones different, but everyone can still be just as good as anyone else.

 

This is the most stupid thing I've ever heard. Gay olymyics? The implication being, like with the paralympics, that gays need special games because they can't be expected to compete with straight people? Grrrrrrreat! That's just what you need!

 

Because gay and lesbian athletes, particularly gay men, could no longer stand enduring the vicious -- and often violent -- homophobia expressed by straight athletes. Greg Louganis, a gold medal-winning swimmer at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, did not come out of the closet until after the games, because of intense homophobia by teammate Matt Biondi.

Violent homophobia remains firmly entrenched in the locker room. Athletics and the military are the last bastions of male machismo in this country.

-- Skeeter

 

So surely that means it's the job of gay athletes to break down those barriers? Taking your ball and starting your own game isn't the way to do it... Negro leagues, anyone?

 

Breaking down barriers, in this case, is not practical when you're being pummeled by a gang of straight guys who are so insecure about their masculinity that they feel compelled to beat the crap out of you in order to validate it.

-- Skeeter

 

Riiiiight.... Of course. Daddy, daddy! The big nasty straight men were bullying me! Wah! Wah!

Aahahahahahah.