Queer Sporting Alliance boosting gender diversity in sport

Queer Sporting Alliance boosting gender diversity in sport

Post By World Ada Cheung, Australia, Basketball, Courtney Fewquandie, diverse, gender, Kirsty Marshall, League, lgbt, Melbourne, new zealand, non-binary, participation, pride, queer, Queer sporting alliance, Siren, Sport, Stella Lesic, tournament, trans, transgender, transition, transphobia

In March this year, the Queer Sporting Alliance (QSA) took out the Outstanding Contribution to Sport Award at the Victorian Pride Awards.

The QSA is Australia and New Zealand’s largest LGBTIQA+ sporting club, and the award recognises its ongoing efforts to provide queer-friendly sporting environments and events.

They have included Australia’s first and largest queer basketball tournament, which featured more than 180 players from around Australia and took place on Wurundjeri Country in the northern suburbs of Naarm/Melbourne in January 2024.

The QSA’s focus is on participation and creating a space for those who have previously been excluded from sport.

The QSA focuses on creating safe spaces for those who have previously been excluded from sport. (Supplied: Kirsty Marshall)

Some participants had not played basketball in many years before the tournament, and for some it was their first time stepping onto a court.

The tournament, and all QSA programs, welcome queer folk as well as straight allies.

“It was like Mardi Gras but for gays who love sport,” participant Jethro Athlas said.

“It was my dream come true.”

QSA president Stella Lesic said the tournament was significant because it ensured players of any gender identity could participate.

Queer Sporting Alliance president Stella Lesic said the tournament did not require players to out themselves.(Supplied: Monique Clarke)

“The tournament didn’t require any player to out themselves [unless they wanted to] or have a referee assume their gender for the purpose of applying mixed/gendered basketball rules,” they said.

“Particularly for players taking steps to gender affirmation or who have experienced transphobia in sport, our tournament and the QLeague are game-changing.

“For the first time in basketball’s history, players could just play.”

Associate professor Ada Cheung is a clinician, scientist and endocrinologist specialising in the treatment of transgender individuals and sees the benefits the QSA brings to the community.

“What QSA does is beneficial, not just for queer people, but for everybody,” she says.

“[At] the grassroots level, there needs to be much more of a focus on participation [for gender diverse people].”

Ada Cheung says there should be more focus on the participation of gender diverse people in sport. (ABC News)

Bringing queer people back to basketball

Athlas started basketball at 11 years old and played until they came out as non-binary at 23.

“I felt I couldn’t show up as me with the binary rules of a regular competition and I didn’t have many other queer friends at the time to make a team that felt safe,” they said.

Fellow tournament participant Leigh Seelie had a similar story of dropping out of sport after coming out as trans.

“I played on and off during my adulthood and stopped around four years ago as I started to transition,” she said.

“I did not feel that the captain of my team would accept me as they had made a number of transphobic posts on Facebook.

“I did not find a new team as I was concerned about how people would react to me playing and I did not want to be spotlighted.

“When the [QSA] tournament came up, I was very excited to play … It felt like a great opportunity to play a sport I loved again.”

Many QSA tournament participants have similar stories of dropping out of mainstream sport. (Supplied: Kirsty Marshall)

While at first Seelie felt “overwhelmed” about playing in the tournament after time away from the game, she said her team made her feel very welcome.

“I felt a huge amount of joy just being able to be me and play a game I loved,” she said.

With more than 1,000 members registered around Australia, the QSA has also seen an influx of straight, cisgender men and women joining the club.

“QLeague is a joy,” QSA regular and ally Greg Craske said.

“The diversity is an amazing part of the league and comes along with so much mutual support, even across teams.

“Everyone wants others to do well, especially for those that have no experience.”

As an ally to the queer community, Craske sees key differences in the sporting environment the QSA provides.

Craske transferred to the QSA after playing in exclusively male leagues.

“[At the QSA] I have never seen a tech foul given, never seen the referee openly argued with, and have never seen aggression between players,” Craske said.

“It is refreshing, and at my age I am glad to leave all that behind”.

Trans participation lagging behind

Only a very small percentage of the trans community currently participates in sport.

Only a small percentage of trans and gender diverse people are participating in sport.(Supplied: Danielle Basser)

The QSA is determined to change that, and since launching in 2015 has formed dozens of teams across the country.

This includes the QLeague in Naarm, which is designed to engage more trans and gender diverse people in sport.

Dr Cheung argued that such initiatives were critical in the context of current debates around trans participation in sport.

“I’ve been doing a lot of advocacy in the space because a lot of decisions and policies, even at the elite level, have been made based on fear and a lack of evidence and presuming that trans women are men, which is just not true and not understanding what the current research actually shows,” Dr Cheung said.

While many sports continue to grapple with definitions of inclusion, Lesic dreams of the QSA becoming “the biggest queer sports club on the planet”, by bringing everyone in rather than finding more reasons to keep people out of participating in sport.

Reflecting on creating the QSA and building it to what it is today, Lesic said: “We got there by focusing on ensuring the people sitting on the sidelines were our absolute priority. My future hope is that sport from community to elite finds a way to include everyone.”

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

Courtney Fewquandie (she/her) is a proud Butchulla and Gubbi Gubbi woman and sports advocate specialising in diversity, equity, and social justice.

Kirsty Marshall (she/her) is a video producer and digital content creator with a passion for making community spaces more inclusive, specifically in a sporting context.

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‘It takes a village’: The price we pay to keep our kids in sport

Post By World children, COST, families, kids, participation, Sport

For Sarah McGovern, keeping her kids in sport is crucial, but also overwhelming.

“This year’s soccer registration was two weeks earlier than usual. We were going to pay the rates, but I put them off and thought, they can just be late,” she says.

For both boys, MiniRoos registration fees are $300 — but they also need to fork out for boots (kids’ feet grow fast), shin pads and uniform kits each season.

It’s a long drive to buy new gear, so when she’s not teaching at the nearby preschool, Sarah often spends her time hunting for second-hand items closer to home.

“I keep an eye out on buy, swap and sell Facebook pages. The club doesn’t offer subsidies, and they don’t have second-hand soccer boots,” Sarah says.

“It might not seem like a lot to other people, but we’ve got to plan for these things.”

Jasper (left) and his big brother Charlie have developed friendships, fancy footwork and lifelong skills.(ABC Mid North Coast: Wiriya Sati)

Living on a lower income in a regional NSW town, there’s the added fuel costs to get to training and game day.

Summer swimming lessons also impact the budget, but it means the kids are safe around water, where their dad, Aaron works long hours as a skipper.

For Jasper, 6, and Charlie, 8, who are both autistic and have ADHD, playing soccer means everything to them.

Sarah says it’s worth every cent to see them develop lifelong skills and self-confidence.

And with Jasper being offered a spot on the representative team next year, they’re still figuring out whether they can afford to travel to training twice a week and pay for the higher soccer fees.

For now, the family manages to scrape by.

But not all families can prioritise sport

Recent data from the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) AusPlay survey reveals that the cost of sport in Australia — as well as time commitments — are two of the most common reasons why many kids across the country aren’t participating.

It shows 43 per cent of children aged 14 and under participated in out-of-school organised sports activities at least once a week.

And children were less likely to participate if they were from a low-income family, lived in a remote or regional area, or spoke a language other than English at home.

It also shows families on average spend $600 per child last year on sport, compared to $520 in 2019.

Australians are being invited to share what they think are the biggest barriers and benefits to sport, which will then help shape up the first-ever strategy to elevate general participation.

The work is being driven by a steering group made up of 17 diverse experts from across the country, with their own experience on the value and impact sport provides.

Cameron French, the ASC’s general manager of participation, says the data clearly shows that affordability and time commitments are big issues.

“We’re hearing that travel costs in regional and remote areas, as well as the time it takes for families to take kids to sport certainly factors in,” he says.

But it’s about ensuring all families can access sport in the first place, Mr French says, including those from diverse backgrounds.

“We want to work together to find solutions,” he says.

Mr French says once the steering group finishes its consultation phase, the finalised strategy will deliver a “range of practical projects” to be rolled out nationwide.

Access for all kids, everywhere

Jacara Egan, a Muthi Muthi and Gunditjmara woman, is an ex-VFLW player and member of the participation strategy steering group.

She’s deeply passionate about the health and wellbeing of young First Nations people.

As well as working with Headspace as a national manager, she’s an assistant coach for the Essendon VFLW side.

As a professional coach and a mum of two young boys, Jacara Egan wants to see investment in grassroots sport.(Supplied)

“Sport was a really significant part of my life growing up. It’s given me many gifts,” she says.

“We know sport gives life and leadership skills. Since the beginning of time in our mob there’s been sport.”

Working on a national strategy is one way she wants to help give other kids like her the opportunity to thrive.

“My family had to make sacrifices to allow me to play as a kid,” she says.

“Some days I’d see mum crying, wondering how we were going to pay the bills. But to her credit, we never missed out on one thing we wanted to do in sport.”

She says there needs to be an investment in supporting kids to participate at all levels.

Jacara is thankful she can give her boys the opportunity to play sport, but says it’s not the case for all families.

That could mean more funding for grassroots sport, or a commitment from “big business” codes like Football Australia and the NRL to make club-based sports more affordable.

“When I think about my boys, or any young person or athlete, I think they deserve to have people around them that understand and can coach them, whatever level they’re at,” she says.

“I think we are challenging ourselves [with the strategy] to build something that will have an impact on the overall goal — increasing participation — but focusing on families experiencing this day to day.”

For this family, it takes a village

In the metro areas, ferrying kids across suburbs all weekend can sometimes feel like a part-time job.

But in regional and remote areas, it can take a whole day just to get to one local game and home again.

That’s not just time, but a tank of fuel.

Madeleine Gooda’s daughter Lily is a rising star in Rockhampton, in central Queensland.

Madeleine Gooda’s talented daughter Lily, a Wadja girl, is obsessed with footy. (ABC Central Queensland: Jessica Clifford)

She plays rugby league locally, but has also been selected for the under-14 regional team.

“We come from a family of rugby league players. League is what we live and breathe here,” Madeleine says.

She’s thrilled to see Lily’s recent growth in confidence and is supporting her dream to play professionally one day.

Madeleine, a Bidja, Iman and Ghangulu woman, describes her family as fortunate.

Alongside Lily’s dad William Munns, a Wadja man, Madeleine invests a huge amount of time and energy into giving all three of her kids a chance to play sport.

Lily’s family, including her dad William, a Wadja man, and her little sister Maalii, a Wadja girl, are her biggest fans. (ABC Central Queensland: Jessica Clifford)

She also fundraises within her local area to cover the cost of travel, gear and fees.

The recent state championships on the Gold Coast would have left them more than $4,000 out of pocket — something they just didn’t have to spare.

But with her own mum’s help, Madeleine was able to fundraise to cover everything.

“Where I come from, there’s a lot of people with their children making all these representative sides. There is so much untapped talent out there,” she says.

“It’s so great to see these kids excelling. But [their families and community] are working hard to fundraise like I am.”

Lily is dreaming big and her whole community is behind her.(ABC Central Queensland: Jessica Clifford)

Madeleine says that without people in her community volunteering their time to coach, organise and transport kids to games and training, it wouldn’t be possible for many to play.

“We have a really strong support system in place. For us it takes a village to raise a child. And we’re very lucky we have a really big village.”

With families usually expected to donate their time and skills towards coaching, training or team management, the ASC’s strategy is also looking at what impact this has on participation levels across all sports.

Mr French says “flexible” options requiring less commitment from parents, or “opt-in” and “opt-out” roles for families are becoming more popular.

“We need to do more to make sure that the volunteers — who tend to be parents of the kids — have a great experience. It’s a real focus for the commission,” he adds.

The national sport participation survey closes on June 16, with the strategy expected to be released later this year.

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Tag: participation