The Gay Games is the world's largest sporting and cultural event organized by and specifically for LGBT athletes, artists, musicians, and others. It welcomes participants of every sexual orientation and every skill level. Originally called the Gay Olympics, it was started in San Francisco in 1982, as the brainchild of Tom Waddell, whose goals were to promote the spirit of inclusion and participation, as well as the pursuit of personal growth in a sporting event. It retains many similarities with the Olympics, including the Gay Games flame which is lit at the opening ceremony.[1]
The Gay Games is open to all who wish to participate, without regard to sexual orientation. There are no qualifying standards to compete in the Gay Games. It brings together people from all over the world, many from countries where homosexuality remains illegal and hidden.
The Federation of Gay Games (FGG) is the sanctioning body of the Gay Games. From its statement of concept and purpose:
| “ | The purpose of the Federation of Gay Games is to foster and augment the self-respect of lesbians and gay men throughout the world and to engender respect and understanding from the nongay world, primarily through an organized international participatory athletic and cultural event held every four years, and commonly known as the Gay Games.[2] | ” |
Contents |
| # | Year | City | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | 1982 | San Francisco | United States |
| II | 1986 | San Francisco | United States |
| III | 1990 | Vancouver | Canada |
| IV | 1994 | New York City | United States |
| V | 1998 | Amsterdam | Netherlands |
| VI | 2002 | Sydney | Australia |
| VII | 2006 | Chicago | United States |
| VIII | 2010 | Cologne | Germany |
| IX | 2014 | Cleveland | United States |
The 1982 Gay Games took place in San Francisco from August 28 to September 2, 1982.
The 1986 Gay Games took place in San Francisco from August 10–17, 1986.
The 1990 Gay Games took place in Vancouver from August 4–11, 1990. Approximately 7,300 athletes took part in 27 sports, with another 1,500 cultural participants attending. Opening and closing ceremonies were at BC Place Stadium (20 years later to be the site of the 2010 Winter Olympics ceremonies). Gay Games III was the first Gay Games to be held outside the United States, and it is also notable for being the first Gay Games in which Masters world records were set (two, in swimming).
The event was also heralded by controversy from social conservatives. A Fraser Valley church's members took out full page ads in the Vancouver Sun and The Province condemning the event as proof of an "impending sodomite invasion" and encouraging residents to gather at Empire Stadium to pray against the event. In relation, the government of then-Premier Bill Vander Zalm refused to fund the event.[3]
The 1994 Gay Games took place in New York City from Jun 18–25, 1994.
The Games coincided with the Stonewall 25th anniversary events and were themed on "Unity".[4] Sir Ian McKellen gave the closing address at Yankee Stadium on June 25, 1994.[5]
The 1998 Gay Games took place in Amsterdam from August 1–8, 1998. The opening and closing ceremonies took place in Amsterdam Arena.
The 2002 Gay Games took place in Sydney from November 2–9, 2002. Sydney won the bid to host the 2002 Gay Games from other contenders which were Montreal, Toronto, Long Beach/Los Angeles,and Dallas.
Gay Games VII were held in Chicago, USA from July 15 to July 22, 2006. For more on the controversy surrounding Chicago's selection as host city, see Schism in LGBT sports communities over Gay Games VII below.
Gay Games VIII were held in Cologne, Germany from July 31 to August 6, 2010. Cologne was elected at the FGG annual meeting in Chicago on November 14, 2005. This marked the second time the Games were held in Europe, with the first being in Amsterdam in 1998.
On March 16, 2005, the Federation of Gay Games (FGG) announced that Cologne, Johannesburg, and Paris were the official candidate cities for Gay Games VIII in 2010
Dr. Tom Waddell, the former Olympian, who helped found the Gay Games, intended the Gay Games to be called the "Gay Olympics," but a lawsuit filed less than three weeks before 1982's inaugural Gay Olympics forced the name change.[6]
Event organizers were sued by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) under the U.S. Amateur Sports Act of 1978, which gave the USOC exclusive rights to the word Olympic in the United States. Defendants of the lawsuit contended that the law was capriciously applied and that if the Nebraska Rat Olympics and the Police Olympics did not face similar lawsuits, neither should the Gay Olympics.[7]
Some, like Jeff Sheehy, coauthor of San Francisco's domestic partner legislation and former president of the Harvey Milk Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Democratic Club, believed homophobia to be a motivation behind the lawsuit. They cite the authorized use of the word "Olympics" by the Special Olympics and other organizations as evidence of this homophobia.[7]
Others, like Daniel Bell, cite the IOC's long history of protecting the Olympics brand as evidence that the lawsuit against the "Gay Olympics" was not motivated by discrimination against gays. Since 1910 the IOC has taken action, including lawsuits and expulsion from the IOC, to stop other organizations from using the word "Olympics."[8] The Supreme Court ruled for the USOC in San Francisco Arts & Athletics, Inc. v. United States Olympic Committee.
A 2009 documentary film called "Claiming the Title: Gay Olympics on Trial" was created in the USA and has previewed at several film festivals.[9][10] The subject was also included in a 2005 film by David Sector, called "Take the Flame! Gay Games: Grace Grit & Glory".[11]
In the years since the lawsuit, the Olympics and the Gay Games have set aside their initial hostilities and worked cooperatively together, successfully lobbying to have HIV travel restrictions waived for the 1994 Gay Games in New York and the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta.
Plans to launch a complementary Gay Winter Games, slated for February 1986 in Denver, Colorado collapsed, due to a lack of sufficient funding and logistical problems. There have been no subsequent attempts to launch a Gay Winter Games since, although Whistler, British Columbia, Canada hosts an annual gay winter sports festival.
In 2001, the bidding organization from Montreal, Canada won the right to negotiate with Federation of Gay Games (FGG) for a licensing agreement to host the 2006 Gay Games, but after two years of failed negotiations Montreal broke off talks at the 2003 FGG annual meeting in Chicago. There were three main points of contention, over which neither party could agree:
In a weakening global economy following international terrorist attacks, including 9/11, the FGG wanted Montrel to be able to plan for a successful Gay Games even if participation did not meet Montreal's optimistic projection of 24,000 participants, twice the level of participation of the previous Gay Games in 2002. Due to financial problems in previous events, the FGG also asked for transparency into Montreal 2006's financial activities. After Montreal refused to continue talks, the FGG held a second round of bidding in which Chicago and Los Angeles bidders, who had put forth well-received bids to host the 2006 games in the first round along with Montreal and Atlanta, chose to bid. Ultimately, the FGG awarded Gay Games VII to Chicago Games, Inc.
The Montreal organizing committee nevertheless decided to proceed to hold an athletic and cultural event without the sanction of the FGG; this plan developed into the first edition of the World Outgames, and the creation of its sanctioning body, the Gay and Lesbian International Sport Association.
Due to limited personal and organizational resources, many individual and team participants were forced to choose between Gay Games Chicago and World Outgames Montreal, a situation exacerbated by the two events being a week apart. The closing ceremony of Gay Games Chicago on July 22, 2006 was only 7 days before the opening ceremony of World Outgames Montreal on July 29, 2006. This meant that those who competed or performed in Chicago would have little recovery time before Montreal. The split resulted in a lower quality of athletic competition at both events because neither could claim the whole field of competitors. Team and individual sports were hurt alike. Few teams were able to field complete squads for both events; In wrestling, 100 wrestlers competed in Chicago (comparable to previous Gay Games), but only 22 competed in Montreal, by far the lowest number for any major international tournament. There were some advantages to the games being so close together time wise and location wise. For some overseas participants who had to travel far, the convenience of the two events being only a week apart and not far from each other enabled them to attend both. Many did not attend at all. After Chicago drew approximately 12,000 participants, Montreal drew an estimated 8,000 athletes—a third of the organization's original projections."
Since 2006, the need for a secondary global multisport event has been the subject of much debate, especially after the final financial figures for 2006 were released. The Chicago Gay Games VII ended with no debt and all bills paid. In contrast, the Montreal World Outgames ended with 5.3M Canadian dollars of debt.
In addition, the lack of attendees and participants at both events resulted in GLISA (the organization which heads the Outgames) changing the years of the event to precede the years of the Gay Games, meaning that the World Outgames were held in 2009 in Copenhagen and the Gay Games held in Cologne in 2010, while the World Outgames are being held in 2013 in Antwerp and Gay Games held in 2014 in Cleveland, Ohio.
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