Feature: Sport and Human Rights
No.48
September 2006
 
  print / save view 

Profile - "Out in Sport" at the
GLISA Human Rights Conference
July 26-29, 2006
Rob Jagnow

At the beginning of August, more than 12,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) athletes from 109 countries descended on Montreal for the First World Outgames. The week-long event, organized by the Gay & Lesbian International Sport Association (GLISA) emphasized participation, inclusion and personal best at its 36 sporting events.
From July 26-29, 2006, just prior to the opening of the Outgames, GLISA also hosted the world's largest human rights conference on LGBT issues with more than 2000 participants of its own. As part of the event, the Gay & Lesbian Athletics Foundation (GLAF) put together an "Out in Sport" conference track with ten panel presentations on topics ranging from transgender athletes to unique concerns for the LGBT sports movement in developing countries.
The inclusion of the "Out in Sport" conference track is motivated by the understanding that sport can be a powerful agent of social change. Just as Jackie Robinson paved the road for social change by being the first African American player in major league baseball, LGBT persons today have the opportunity to change attitudes and breakdown stereotypes through participation in sport.
Remarkably, despite these barriers, the First World Outgames included representatives from 20 countries where homosexuality is still a crime. Enormous progress has been seen in countries like Mexico and Brazil, where LGBT sports leagues are rapidly growing and receiving positive attention from mainstream media.
The "Out in Sport" conference is not just about surveying the status quo but also about identifying means to move forward in the fight against homophobia. One panel focused explicitly on effective agents of social change, identifying the following as key success factors:
  • Pick a targeted mission and do it exceptionally well.
  • Make sure there is a means for financial stability.
  • Demonstrate a need for change.
  • Draw attention to tolerance that already exists.
  • Exercise individual honesty and integrity.
  • Seek a common ground for debate around safety, respect and rights.
  • Aim to understand the struggles of other minority groups.
As an appropriate segue from the human rights conference into the Outgames, tennis champion Martina Navratilova gave a keynote address at the closing plenary session. In her own take on effective agents of social change, she emphasized honesty and integrity, saying that the most powerful statement one can make is to come out of the closet to friends, family and coworkers. It is much harder to have intolerance toward a group if one has a personal, rather than abstract, connection to that group. Furthermore, she emphasized that as consumers, we speak with our dollars and we should be deliberate about supporting businesses that support the LGBT community.
Also introduced at the closing plenary session was the Declaration of Montreal, a document that lays out the political agenda of the LGBT community. Mirroring the major conference themes, the declaration is organized into the categories of essential rights, global issues, the diverse LGBT community, participation in society and creating social change. The document is intended to serve as a foundation for the LGBT equality movement and will likely be used as a benchmark for decades to come.


Contact
Dr. Rob Jagnow
Gay and Lesbian Athletics Federation
USA
Rjagnow@alum.mit.edu



http://www.icsspe.org/portal/index.php?w=1&z=5