ABOUT OFTW

more about OFTW

Our mission  Out For The Win aims to normalise LGBTQI-people in sports and empower youth to feel comfortable in their own skin, by increasing the visibility of the LGBTQI-community in all sports and sportclubs through storytelling.

Our name — “Going out for the win” reflects every athlete’s goal. An athlete is competitive, aims for nothing less than victory and wants to be the first to cross the finish line. Our goal is for everyone to feel perfectly at peace with themselves, both inside and outside the pitch lines. “Being out” is not that simple, far less in sports. Athletes usually postpone their outing until after their career in sport. When hiding a part of yourself, one should never underestimate the heavy burden you have to carry and we do believe this could actually affect your performance. Therefore, OFTW aims to create an online platform where every athlete can read real lifetime stories and confessions of athletes that they can identify with and can take heart from. Furthermore, we want others to become aware of the ‘often cruel’ reality concerning homo-, bi-, trans-, and intersexuality that still exists in sports on this day. Together, we can give young athletes the strength to be themselves and show them to never be ashamed for who they are. That is our aim, our victory, our finish line.

Our logo — The OFTW logo images a square, divided into three pieces. A box at first sight… Actually, what we really aim to symbolise, is that we want to stop “pigeonholing”, as we literally break the square. We want to break through the current conservative and stigmatized prejudices. The three irregular pieces refer to the diversity within sports and the LGBTQI-community. Despite this diversity we strive to form one whole, a strong unity. Only then, standing strong together, we can reach our goals. The two lines also refer to pitch lines. Lines that mark the difference between inside and outside, goal or no goal, victory or defeat. ‘Out’ may usually refer to defeat in sports terminology, however, OFTW hopes to show that ‘out ‘ has a positive meaning too. Not only outside the lines, but also on the playing field.