Gay and Lesbian International Sport Association

The Gay and Lesbian International Sport Association (GLISA) is an international gay and lesbian sport, culture and human rights association. The focus of GLISA is developing gay and lesbian sport worldwide. GLISA does this through sanctioning world and continental games, creating a global calendar of GLBT sport 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 Gay and Lesbian International Sport Association is a democratically governed, international association of LGBT sport and human rights organizations from around the world. Modeled after existing multi-sport organizations, GLISA’s members are international sporting federations, human rights organizations, continental associations representing sport teams and clubs from the major regions of the world, host cities of GLISA’s World OutGames, and other organizations that support the mandate of GLISA.

GLISA grows LGBT sport by facilitating partnerships for the successful delivery of World and Continental OutGames; they share expertise and best-practices with and among member organizations around the world to nurture growth and sustainability; and partner with a broad variety of organizations, both LGBT and mainstream, to build bridges that help further activities, visibility while celebrating culture through sport.

GLISA expands LGBT rights by requiring that a human rights conference be included at every event sanctioned as an Outgames. In fact, the first worldOutgames in Montreal produced the Declaration of Montreal.

The distinctive work of GLISA can be described in terms of ‘four pillars’:

The first pillar is GLISA’s mandate to nurture and grow LGBT sport world-wide, year in and year out, through outreach, member services and the sharing of knowledge and best practices among member organizations. The second pillar of GLISA is partnership with mainstream sport, human rights and cultural organizations that share our mission to make all places safe for LGBT athletes to play sport. The third pillar of GLISA is the delivery of games. These include world OutGames every four years and continental OutGames in intervening years. The fourth pillar of GLISA is the professionalization of the LGBT sport movement. GLISA is committed to legacy in the form of transfer of knowledge, innovation in the delivery of services, and professionalism in the implementation of marketing and sponsorship strategies.

GLISA’s vision is a vibrant future LGBT sport movement that offers a compelling competition calendar, competitive events featuring the highest standards of organization and facilities, growing capacity at every level of the sport system, events fully recognized by mainstream and LGBT sport governing bodies, and a viable business model for hosting games.

History

GLISA was formed by an international working group brought together by the Montreal 2006 organizers. In 2003, the Federation of Gay Games (FGG) withdrew its sanction of Montreal, because of a dispute over the size of the event and demands of overall control of the Montreal 2006 budget by the FGG. Through an informal survey, Montreal found that several athletes and organizations were willing to participate in the event even if the FGG did not want to come to an agreement with the Montreal 2006 organizers. Montreal 2006, with support from its partners including the city of Montreal, the Province of Québec and the Federal government decided to go forward with the event. In order to create a legacy for the games—and a newly integrated concept: a human rights conference—Montreal 2006 organizers brought representatives from every continent to form an organization that would reflect the needs of the wider community. Out of this meeting of representatives sprung the Gay and Lesbian International Sport Association and a new sport, culture and human rights event: the World OutGames.

GLISA licensed the first edition of the World Outgames to Montreal 2006. GLISA licensed the rights the second edition of the World Outgames Copenhagen, Denmark 2008. Antwerp, Belgium hosted the sport, culture and human rights event in 2013.

The next world Outgames will be held in 2017 in Miami Beach, Florida, USA.[1]

Regional outgames

Since establishing the World Outgames, GLISA has also supported the establishment of continental outgames, including the North American Outgames and the AsiaPacific Outgames, are held every three years.

In 2007, the North American Outgames were held in Calgary and the 2008 Asia-Pacific Outgames were held in Melbourne. In 2011, the North American Outgames were held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and the Asia-Pacific Outgames were held in Wellington. Darwin, Australia hosted the 3rd Asia-Pacific Outgames in May 2014.

The next North-American Outgames are set for St-Louis, Missouri, USA for 2016.

See also

References

  1. ↑ http://www.glisa.org/miami-beach-miami-wins-2017-worldoutgames/

External links

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