Practicing sports should be empowering, strengthening, inclusive. It shouldn’t be such a fight for anyone to take even the first steps into any type of sport. If you want to keep sports fair and honest, like so many anti-trans voices out there claim, you welcome trans and intersex people – both in amateur and elite sports. Banning someone from participation is as far removed from the olympic mindset as can be.
One day after Trans Day of Visibility, Els Van Doesburg, alderman of N-VA and new columnist of De Morgen, decides to open an attack on trans athletes. Her starting point? Reducing trans women to mediocre men’s bodies who will walk away with medals in women’s competitions. A bad 1 April joke that calls for a basic lesson in gender and sport.
We are on the verge of a wonderful sports summer with the Olympic Games, the European Football Championship and many other events. Athletes of whom we are proud are working their butts off. We support them, we look up to them, and yet many of them cannot be fully themselves.
From brave athletes who came out of the closet to fantastic sport performances. There were many hopeful events this year. Read the top moments of 2018!
Exactly 20 years ago today, Justin Fashanu stepped out of life. The Briton, who caused a furore at Norwich City in the early 1980s, was in 1990 the first football player who came out. With this coming-out, Fashanu paved the way for many other LGBT athletes, but his confession also led to a lot of misunderstanding and prejudice.
In 2017, we’ve seen a lot of courageous athletes; people who step up and great winners. Here are the best moments of the year according to the OFTW-team.
An anticlimax, missed opportunities, huge macho behavior and stubborn religious views. We surely have seen some very painful events this year.
When we started this project, we received various reactions. Many people were encouraging the project right away and agreed that it was about time for LGBTQI-athletes to gain more visibility. Others wondered whether this was really necessary. “Does it really matter whether an athlete is gay or trans?” they said. We understand this reaction, but we don’t fully agree. Allow us to explain why a project as Out For The Win is really necessary in current society.