The National Gay Basketball Association (NGBA) is an LGBTQ sports organization which exists to promote gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender athletic participation in basketball. [1]
Founded in 2003 by Mark Chamebrs, [2] who also co-founded the Lambda Basketball League, [3] to help LGBT players create city leagues, travel teams, and to allow individual players the ability to find a place or team to participate in LGBT basketball events that are held around the world. [4] The organizational board, consisting of Mark Chambers, Ted Cappas, [5] Jeff Hermann [6] and Rob Smithermann, [7] help NGBA incorporated in May 2005.
The NGBA played a key role in the success of the 2006 Chicago Gay Games basketball event by introducing four new categories in men and women's brackets, A division, B division, C division, 35 and older, and 50 and older 3 on 3 half court, Basketball hosting the most teams in the history of the Gay Basketball.
The first official NGBA event was hosted by Salt Lake City in October 2006. [8]
The inaugural World Gay Basketball Championships were scheduled for May 2020 in South Florida. [9]
The Gay Games is a worldwide sport and cultural event that promotes acceptance of sexual diversity, featuring lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) athletes, artists and other individuals.
Esera Tavai Tuaolo, nicknamed "Mr. Aloha", is an American former professional football player who was a defensive tackle for nine seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the Oregon State Beavers.
The EuroGames are an LGBT+ multi-sport event in Europe, licensed by the EGLSF to a local city host each year and organised by one or more of the federation's member clubs. Similar to the Gay Games, EuroGames are a sports-for-all event, open for participation irrespective of sex, age, sexual identity or physical ability. Additionally it often included less prominent non-olympic sports and disciplines catering to interest of LGBT+ communities like same-sex ballroom dance, line dance, cheerleading, aerobics, bodybuilding as well synchronised/artistic swimming with male participants, which was historically forbidden.
The Gay and Lesbian International Sport Association (GLISA) was an international gay and lesbian, culture and human rights association. Their last update was issued in March 2016, and the website has been offline since October 2017. The focus of GLISA was developing gay and lesbian sport worldwide. This was engineered through sanctioning world and continental games, creating a global calendar of LGBT events, fostering the creation of new LGBT federations, clubs and teams, supporting existing LGBT sport organizations, working in partnership with other sport organization to pursue this mandate, and providing the financial framework to support GLISA's global efforts.
The World Outgames were a sporting and cultural event hosted by the gay community. The Outgames were open to all who wish to participate, without regard to sexual orientation. There were no qualifying standards, although competitions were arranged according to the skill levels of the competitors. The Outgames brought together athletes and artists from all over the world, many from countries where homosexuality remains illegal and hidden.
The International Gay and Lesbian Football Association (IGLFA) is an international organization which was founded in 1992 with the intention of promoting association football (known as soccer in the United States and football in most of the rest of the world) in the LGBTQ+ community and to promote queer football to the world at large.
The 1st World Outgames took place in Montréal, Quebec, Canada from July 26, 2006, to August 5, 2006. The international conference was held from July 26 to the 29. The sporting events were held from July 29 to August 5.
The Outgames were a set of series of multi-event sporting competitions for the LGBTQ community, which is open to all competitors regardless of sexual orientation, or qualification standard. They were sanctioned by the now-defunct GLISA, the Gay and Lesbian International Sport Association. They derived from the original 2006 World Outgames, when the Montreal organizing committee split with the FGG over the organization of the 2006 Gay Games, and created their own sanctioning body and series of Games, with the cooperation of the EGLSF, the sanctioning body of the EuroGames. After the creation of the World Outgames, regional Games were created to complement the EuroGames, being the North American Outgames and the AsiaPacific Outgames. Outgames editions are accompanied by OutFest cultural festivals and OutRights LGBT rights conventions. The first convention at the 2006 World Outgames developed the Declaration of Montreal.
The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other non-heterosexual or non-cisgender (LGBTQ+) community is prevalent within sports across the world.
IGLA+ is the international governing body for predominantly LGBT+ aquatics clubs, representing the sports of swimming, diving, artistic swimming, water polo, and open water swimming. Member clubs are from 16 countries, with the majority of clubs in the United States and Canada. Past presidents of the association have included Scott Kohanowski and Gareth Johnson.
The National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame was a hall of fame established in 2013 to honor LGBT and allied personalities, as well as organizations "whose achievements and efforts have enhanced sports and athletics for the gay and lesbian community". It was established shortly after Jason Collins became the first openly gay NBA player. It is located on the grounds of Center on Halsted in Chicago, Illinois.
Athletes and artists who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, pansexual, non-binary, queer, and/or intersex, and/or who have openly been in a same-sex relationship (LGBTQI+) have competed in the Olympic and Paralympic Games, either openly, or having come out some time afterward.
Rose Cossar, also known as Rosie, is a Canadian rhythmic gymnast, who represented Canada at the 2011 World Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships, the 2011 Pan American Games and the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Margaret Ann "Peg" Grey was an American physical education teacher and sports organizer based in Chicago. She was the first female co-chair of the Federation of Gay Games. She was inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame in 1992.