The sporting competition where all genders are welcome

The sporting competition where all genders are welcome

Post By World all gender games, LGBTQIA, queer, Soccer, university of melbourne

Post-pandemic, queer folk are more isolated than ever.

Research shows that queer people have struggled to find community offline, as well as non-drinking spaces to gather.

Enter Melbourne University Soccer Club’s All Gender Games (AGG).

On a Sunday afternoon at Carlton’s iconic Princes Park, everyone is welcome for a game of soccer, followed by a hearty meal.

AGG was created in 2021. It is a fluid format soccer series made for queer, trans and gender diverse people and also welcomes black, Indigenous, and other people of colour (BIPOC) players and their allies.

The photos in this essay are from the second iteration of the games, which took place in March and April 2023.

Team photo from the latest iteration of the All Gender Games.(Siren Sport/ABC Sport: Cat Hoang)

Rishiroop is a Marketing student at the University of Melbourne.

This year was his first ever AGG, where he joined as an ally after discovering the event on Instagram.

Rishi wanted to join the All Gender Games as an ally.(Siren Sport/ABC Sport: Cat Hoang)

“I wanted to learn and experience and understand these things [LGBTQIA+ issues] because it is an important part of our society,” he says.

“How I connect to people, like people from my state (Tripura, India) and people from different backgrounds is for me, playing football.”

AGG is managed in an experimental format where teams are assigned at random regardless of gender identity, to move away from gender quotas enforced by mixed competition that often erase gender diverse athletes.

Depending on how many people come to play, organisers adapt rules, field size and numbers on the pitch to optimise game flow for maximum enjoyment.

Karlee says “there is a place for you at All Gender Games”.(Siren Sport/ABC Sport: Cat Hoang)

Karlee is a teacher and disability advocate who watched the 2021 AGG from the sidelines before joining in the fun 2023.

They were on a journey of finding their own space and a community that they felt they could connect with on and off the field.

“We just all did that awkward dance of getting to know one another, and catching up,” Karlee says.

“Eventually, you follow each other on socials and then you’ve got more community which is really nice.”

A safe and judgement-free space is also essential to the tournament.

Coaches and volunteers work together to ensure players’ emotional and physical safety, by respecting different identities and channelling competitive spirits positively.

People from all different backgrounds get involved with the AGG. ( Siren Sport/ABC Sport: Cat Hoang)

“I tend to get very emotionally involved with the game. But I learned how to be emotionally involved in a different manner, in a much more positive manner,” Rish says.

Due to anti-trans protests occurring during the event’s run in Melbourne, game marshals are present at the matches to give players peace of mind.

Participants are also offered kits in a range of cuts and sizes that come with name tags where folks can specify their pronouns.

More than 130 cumulative participants took part in the event over its five-week run, receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback.(Siren Sport/ABC Sport: Cat Hoang)

Participants attributed their enjoyment to comfort on the field and being able to connect with other like-minded people, many wanting the event to run the length of a regular season.

Chris is the president of Victoria’s first LGBTQIA+ inclusive soccer club, the Melbourne Rovers.

Chris volunteered as a coach at the AGG. (Siren Sport/ABC Sport: Cat Hoang)

“The reason I joined the games was to take away some learnings to my own soccer club,” he says.

“To help make the Rovers more inclusive, more comfortable, and a more welcoming place for gender diverse folks.

“I’m no fancy person…I’m not a politician and not a lawyer or doctor. You just put your effort into it. It’s not hard.”

An international study from Out of the Fields (2015) found that 80 per cent of athletes have witnessed and/or experienced homophobia in sport.(Siren Sport/ABC Sport: Cat Hoang)

Many players who came along to the AGG reported apprehension in joining mainstream sporting spaces, due to previous experiences with gender and sexuality-based discrimination.

AGG surveyed their participants and found trans and gender diverse players often express unease in single-sexed sports due to fear of being ostracised and being perceived as an intruder or a threat.

This creates a barrier for participation that prevents LGBTQIA+ folks from accessing the mental and physical benefits of sport, including the social benefits that can be achieved through being a part of a welcoming community.

AGG taps into participants’ needs to help them get the most out of their experience.(Siren Sport/ABC Sport: Cat Hoang)

Using this information was key to developing a sport program to serve all participants’ needs.

AGG understands the power sport has to create community and encourages players not just to give soccer a go, but also to connect off the field.

To ensure the social connection continues to build after the game, AGG players can also help themselves to a Vietnamese banquet.

The food is provided free of charge to bring participants together through the practice of sharing food.

Ngoc, owner of Brunswick’s Shop Bao Ngoc, caters for AGG post-game meals.(Siren Sport/ABC Sport: Cat Hoang)

Ngoc is a second generation Vietnamese chef and activist committed to caring for community through her food.

When not working one of her three jobs, Ngoc cooks up a storm and keeps a community fridge stocked with free foods and produce.

Mealtimes help promote community amongst the participants.(Siren Sport/ABC Sport: Cat Hoang)

“It definitely brought a lot to sit down and have a chat with people about their lives and their experiences, which you don’t really get to do when you’re running around chasing the ball,” Chris says.

The event pushes the boundaries of what community sports and beyond can look like with the goal to centre the community’s needs through collective understanding to make soccer more inclusive at all clubs.

AGG organisers hope its success shows that change in sport to include trans and gender diverse athletes in sport is possible.(Siren Sport/ABC Sport: Cat Hoang)

The event shows the value of experimentation, producing a model for non-traditional formats that can help trans and gender diverse people move closer to belonging in sport.

It is all with the hope to see more allies, sports institutions and clubs collaborate to bring these inclusive spaces into common practice, with the players at the heart of the game.

ABC Sport is partnering with Siren Sport to elevate the coverage of Australian women in sport.

Cat Hoang is a second-generation Vietnamese-Australian filmmaker and acting Inclusion and Equity Officer at Melbourne University Soccer Club.

They’ve been running All Gender Games since its inception in 2021.

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Pride Month | Queer cinema’s shackles in the mainstream

Post By Entertainment Gay movies from India, Homosexuality in India, LGBTQIA, Onir filmmaker, Prashanth Varma, pride month, Pride Month 2023, Pride Parade Chennai 2023, Queer Cinema, Queer Cinema in India, Queer Indian movies, Sudha Kongara, Vasudhendra author

Queer cinema continues to be ‘othered’ into a sub-genre, with a sedate growth in mainstream cinema. Funding continues to be the biggest obstacle but not the only one. “Money is tied to things that are controlled by cis-hets who look at filmmaking from a certain perspective,” says filmmaker Onir, pointing out that it is a problem that arises from the notions among those who decide what should be or should not be made.

Flumoxed over funding

Irrespective of being made by cis-gender heterosexual filmmakers (or if it has a cis-het gaze), what the recent string of Hindi films — like Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, Ek Ladki Ko Dekha…, Badhaai Do, Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui, Cobalt Blue, Maja Ma, etc — proves is that if a producer and/or star back your film, the theme being queer has fewer obstacles going forward.

Are these releases a temporary pattern, or the start of something bigger? “A bit of both. Even if it is a trend, the more people venture into this, the more it will be seen as regular,” says Shubh Mangal Zyada… director Hitesh Kewalya, who adds that he got enough support from his producers to make the film.

But one milestone is not enough in a multicultural country like India, he says, and that any attempt, whether profitable or not, helps. “Earlier attempts like Aligarh, I Am, and Fire pushed the door for my film. So every step taken paves the way for the next.”

Hitesh Kewalya
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement

What Hitesh says about the support of the producers cannot be undermined. When Prashanth Varma wanted to make Awe,not many were comfortable with its queer theme, he says. “They thought that it was a joke because, in many Telugu films previously, queer ideas were used as jokes,” he says adding that it matters having producers like actor Nani and Prashanti Tipirneni, who prioritise content over earnings.

Unfortunately, there aren’t too many such backers. Some filmmakers, like Roopa Rao (of Gantumootefame), opt for crowd-funding. Roopa made The Other Love Story in 2015 when the concept of a web series was nascent in India. Roopa wanted to go directly to the audience; so she chose YouTube as a platform. “I started to gather funds from friends and family, and as word spread, strangers began pitching in, including a producer from the UK,” she says. There are also exceptional cases, like Shruthi Sharanyam’s B 32 Muthal 44 Vare, which had a trans-man as one of the leads, where the Government helps with funds, something Roopa wishes happens more.

Stills from ‘The Other Love Story’ and ‘B 32 Muthal 44 Vare’
| Photo Credit:
IMDb & Muzik247

Many queer filmmakers continue to rely on independent sources. Filmmaker Sridhar Rangayan, who has been making films for over 20 years, continues to source his money — he made his first film, Gulabi Aaina, with a budget of two-and-half lakhs and his films now cost over a crore — from independent sources; even his next film Kuch Sapney Apne (a sequel to Evening Shadows) is funded by friends, family, and private investors.

What’s unfortunate is that even if you finally make an indie queer film, Sridhar says, reaching the theatres is difficult. “It’s not easy to recover the amount you invest in marketing. Moreover, multiplexes are dominated by bigger distributors who cater only to star-driven films. Theatres are now trying just to break even, they are not in the mood to support indie films.” Sridhar hopes to see dedicated screens for indie films like in the US.

Sridhar Rangayan
| Photo Credit:
Punit Reddy/Special Arrangement

Even Tamil filmmaker Sudha Kongara, who has made blockbusters with stars, says she does not know how many more mainstream commercial films she has to make, in order to facilitate a project on the lines of her own Thangam (the story of a trans-person from Netflix’sPaava Kadhaigalanthology) to hit theatres. “It’s still a chip on my shoulder that you have to be commercially viable, to do something you actually want later,” she says. “Even the OTT players ask me for commercially-viable content like what I put out in theatres.” She adds that the streamers are also star-driven now.

Nevertheless, Sridhar rests his hope on streaming platforms. “My first queer film, 2003’s Gulabi Aaina, was refused a censor certificate. We had to go through community-based organisations to screen it at film festivals. Only in 2015, when Netflix entered India, did the film get a release on OTT,” he informs.

However, Sridhar and many others say that the space on OTTs is shrinking as well. “Whenever I pitch something, they say, ‘We’re only taking baby steps,’ but their platform already has content that is far more provocative, which people are watching,” says Onir.

Onir

Time for more stars to shine?

So, while it tries to circumvent the star-driven system, should queer cinema also create its own stars? Onir says that it depends on society’s acceptance. “We are living in a country where actors don’t want to come out because of the state of acceptance.”

Open-and-out queer actors, filmmakers, and producers are the need for the hour. Adds Onir, “We need more people from the community to talk about their lived-in experiences. That’s why it was important for me to cast a queer actor in Pine Cone.” Onir’s latest is headlined by Vidur Sethi, the first openly gay Bollywood actor.

What does that have to do with queer cinema finding success in the mainstream? A lot.

Queer filmmakers in the mainstream

Poster of ‘Pine Cone’
| Photo Credit:
@IamOnir/Twitter

Firstly, a boost in the mainstream would be counterproductive if most queer content is from cis-het filmmakers who tell queer stories from their perspective. For instance, Sridhar points out how most ‘Bollywood queer films’ are family dramas with just a few queer elements thrown in. “Other elements are narratives structured around these themes, not vice-versa.” Or as queer Kannada author Vasudhendra says, it seems as if most cis-het filmmakers “imagine a cis-man-cis-woman relationship and just swap the gender of one of them,” which fences the real experiences of queer.

It’s akin to cis-men attempting to make the new-age female action star come across as a gender swap with the hyper-masculine male hero, or as Sudha puts it, “semi-pseudo male characters,” and claim that to be progressive characterisation. The presence of queers will ensure the mainstream space is devoid of queerphobic ideas, which are still prevalent in cinema (as recent as this year’s Telugu release Ramabanam)

Vasudhendra
| Photo Credit:
Ramakrishna Sidrapal/Special Arrangement

But Vasudhendra does not believe that queers should only make queer films. “If a story is about a cis-woman who has married a gay man, it’d be better if she tells the story from her point of view.” But only when queers start telling their stories will others learn their perspective and try to do better, he adds. “It’s like how the earlier Dalit stories, that were written by non-Dalits, were mostly sympathy showers with no nuances of the life of Dalits. That changed. So did stories of women. So should be the case with queer stories.”

Sudha understands this. The filmmaker met trans people and took six months to prepare for her short in Paava Kadhaigal. “But I will never know if I am doing justice to it. I am someone who will have qualms with that.”

Some producers see queer cinema as mere tokenism. “Many a time, they are like, ‘Hey, we have done one queer film, and we’re done.’ Are our lives so plain and homogeneous that you make one story and it’s done? They don’t tell a straight director, ‘We’ve already done 10 straight stories,’ right?” questions Onir.

Sudha Kongara
| Photo Credit:
Pichumani K/The Hindu

Tokenism in queer cinema

There is an idea that’s floating around on how queerness can reach the mainstream; similar to having cis-gender men and women play supporting characters, can’t we have queer characters as well in movies led by cis-genders? Would that not help in normalising queerness in a cis-heteronormative space?

Filmmakers caution that such writing could amount to tokenism if not given its due respect and dignity. Onir wonders if this means that the queer character’s queerness is to be watered down. “Have you ever heard someone say that this person is not wearing his straightness on his sleeve? Why does my life have to be subtle? So, a queer character should be treated with as much dignity as you treat other characters,” he says.

It is also important that queer characters do not seek validation from cis-het society. “Everything about us is not about them; we are leading our lives as well.” And he also points out that such attempts be not put as ‘having queers in films that do not speak about queer issues’. “I hate the word ‘issue’. What ‘queer issue’ do films like Call Me By Your Name or the French film Close talk about? Not all heterosexual stories are about ‘issues’. Why is my life an ‘issue’?”

A still from ‘Close’
| Photo Credit:
Prime Video

Acceptance in society

All this talk ultimately rests on the audience of a film and how society accepts queers. On that front, many seem pragmatically optimistic. “Ten years ago, if I went to a public institution and asked them if I can speak about queerness, they’d reject the idea without a second thought. But now, many colleges are requesting me to come and speak about it. Society is gradually opening up,” says Vasudhendra.

Cinema and pop culture play a vital role in this, and it is up to the collective society to ensure that there are more avenues for queer stories, more space for queer discourse and more queers telling their stories.