The eleventh version of the Homosexual Video games kicked off final weekend in each Guadalajara and Hong Kong, marking the occasion’s first foray into Latin America and Asia since its beginnings in 1982.
The video games are an athletic competitors, but in addition a world celebration of variety with 31 sports activities, together with mahjong, dodgeball, cheerleading and pink flamingo — a fusion of efficiency, skits, drag and dance each out and in of the water.
There may be additionally a full lineup of “actual” sports activities, together with badminton, dodgeball, basketball, seaside and indoor volleyball, fencing, bowling, determine skating, soccer, rowing and martial arts — though organizers say few will rise to a degree past “leisure exercise.” Additionally, rivals don’t signify nations.
Relatively than aspire to an elite-level event, the primary goal of the Homosexual Video games is to foster respect, integration and the values of variety by sport. Within the final video games in Paris in 2018, there have been 10,317 registered members from 91 nations.
This 12 months’s video games — which embody heterosexual individuals for the primary time, within the title of inclusion — have been initially scheduled for Hong Kong in 2022, however have been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, with Guadalajara later turning into a co-host.
Each websites are anticipated to welcome greater than 2,000 members from as much as 45 nations earlier than the video games conclude on Saturday, Nov. 11.
The choice of Hong Kong as a number metropolis has been met with criticism because of the metropolis’s poor LGBTQ+ and human rights information. Whereas same-sex relationships are authorized in Hong Kong, town doesn’t acknowledge marriage equality and lacks anti-discrimination legal guidelines.
In the meantime, Guadalajara, as soon as thought of certainly one of Mexico’s most conservative cities, is awash within the colour of the rainbow for the video games this week. Town was chosen by the New York Instances as one of many world’s prime 52 vacationer locations for 2023, largely due its vibrant LBGTQ+ tradition.
Jaime Cobián, founding father of CODISE, a Mexican nonprofit that promotes sexual variety and fights discrimination, stated the Homosexual Video games assist individuals see the LGBTQ+ inhabitants otherwise.
“The visibility and assist are necessary,” he stated. “However an important factor is that this contributes to cultural change, which is the most important drawback. We’d like that sensitivity in order that society modifications the way in which of accepting us, of treating us with respect.”
One of many first LGBTQ+ activists in Guadalajara, Cobián recalled when he and others tried to host the Worldwide Congress of Gays, Lesbians and Trans Individuals. It was 1991, and the plan was shelved as a consequence of homophobic reactions from Jalisco residents and politicians.
Now, the Homosexual Video games are thought of the most important sporting and cultural occasion of sexual variety on the planet, and internet hosting them is “an act of historic reparation,” stated Andrés Treviño Luna, Jalisco’s director of sexual variety.
The epicenter of exercise in Guadalajara is “Villa Paraísa,” which can host well being clinics, HIV and sexuality workshops, vogue reveals, an artwork exhibit, theater, music and two galas. See the entire schedule of occasions right here.
Officers say internet hosting the Homosexual Video games will assist Guadalajara in its bids to host World Satisfaction, the most important pleasure competition on the planet, in 2029 and the Worldwide AIDS Convention in 2026. For the latter, town is reportedly among the many finalists.
With stories from Aristegui Noticias, Informador and The Advocate
