Author Archives: Madeleine

Madeleine Cuff

Following on from Sophia’s earlier post on NSPCC attempts to tackle homophobia in sport amongst children and young people, we’ve taken a look at common experiences faced by young LGBT people in Britain.

Click to make the interactive graphic larger.

The data was provided by Allsorts*, a Brighton-based youth support charity for LGBT youngsters. Between July and December 2011, Allsorts surveyed 31 of their users, asking them about their experience of growing up as an LGBT individual. The size of the bubble represents how common the experience was amongst those surveyed – the bigger the bubble, the more common.

The results are startling. Despite coming from what is commonly referred to as “the gay capital” of the UK, 43% said they had experienced mental health problems, and 12% had gone as far as to attempt suicide. Reassuringly however, 77% of respondents said Allsorts had provided help, support and guidance.

This data shows that growing up gay, lesbian, bisexual or any other denomination is still no picnic for young people. Many of the experiences described are symptomatic of isolation and lonliness. Sport, with its opportunities for teamwork and socialising, could provide an opportunity for young people to feel more connected to their peers.

How does your experience growing up compare to these youngsters?

*Established in 1999 Allsorts provides help and support for LGBT people under the age of 26 in Brighton. Funded by a variety of charities, including Princess of Wales Memorial Fund and Comic Relief, Allsorts is staffed by a mixture of staff and volunteers. It describes its purpose as:

• Supporting vulnerable, alienated or marginalized young people in Brighton and Hove and the surrounding area who are LGBT or unsure of their sexuality and/or gender identity

• Delivering peer led homophobia, biphobia and transphobia awareness and anti-bullying workshops in schools, colleges and youth organisations

• Providing training for adults and agencies working with young people

• Providing promotional and educational materials (booklets, toolkits, stickers, posters etc)

Madeleine Cuff

Inspired by the swim teams at the Gay Games in Vancouver in 1990, Out to Swim is a competitive swimming club for lesbians, transsexuals, transgender and gay athletes. The team regularly competes at national and international events, including the Gay Games – the biggest event on the LGBT sporting calender.

Out to Swim has about 70 swimmers in its team, and has a water polo and synchronised swimming group alongside swimming. Training times and locations can be found here.

So why does Out to Swim exist? What’s the need for an LGBT swimming club?

Emmamuel Nerozzi is a non-competitive swimmer with the club, and helps out taking the register at classes and other club administration duties. Nerozzi, an accountant, came to the UK from Italy 11 years ago. Out to Swim is the first swimming club he has joined, either here or in Europe. “Out to Swim for me is a great place to swim and a great place for meeting people,” he said. “In particular it is great for people not from London. I met my best friend here.”

Out to Swim are proud of the open, social environment they create for gay swimmers.  Their club constitution sets out its aims as an organisation.

1. To promote participation in aquatic sports among lesbian women, gay men and friends of our community, including masters Swimming and Water polo, both of which are integral parts of the club;
2. To provide an atmosphere where gay and non-gay athletes can practice together in mutual understanding and support;
3. To provide an opportunity for athletes of all abilities to participate in organised practices and competitions in a team atmosphere and so to achieve their own goals in their aquatic sports and;
4. Make visible the contribution of lesbian and gay people to all aspects of swimming/ aquatic sports and to oppose all forms of homophobia, sexism and racism in the sport.

Gay Sports Blog wanted to get to the heart of why a gay swim team was so successful and popular with its members, and what makes it different from a traditional swim team. So we headed down to a weekday session at University of London Union last week to find out. Watch our video to see what Out to Swim member Andy had to say.

It gets a bit noisy pool side mid-way through the video. I’m in the process of trying to apply captions to the video to make comprehension a bit easier, but until then please find the full text of what Joe said below:

My name’s Joe Sadler and I came to Out to Swim I think to meet people initially and also I had heard about a big competition – it was the Gay Games in Cologne in 2010 and I wanted to take part in that. So I joined the club. That was 2 years ago.

It’s obviously a team, which, compared to tennis, I’ve been to a gay tennis club. I’d always played tennis as a kid and I didn’t find that that was conducive to meeting people. But the atmosphere with all the team is really friendly, and open and accepting. It’s good.

I think for a lot of people they didn’t feel that they could participate as children and they were maybe singled out but were actually very good, and so ‘picked for the teams’ – we don’t really have that selection criteria.

It’s purely social really. We do have a competitive aspect in that we participate in the league and we want to win but also being around everyone with no specific selection criteria is really fun.

Are you a member of a gay sports team? We want to hear from you! Get in touch by tweet, e-mail or commenting below!