In March this year, the Queer Sporting Alliance (QSA) won the Outstanding Contribution to Sport Award at the Victorian Pride Awards.
The QSA is the largest LGBTIQA+ sporting club in Australia and New Zealand, and the award recognizes its ongoing efforts to deliver gay-friendly sporting environments and events.
They included Australia’s first and largest queer basketball tournament, which featured over 180 players from across Australia and took place in Wurundjeri Country, in the northern suburbs of Naarm/Melbourne, in January 2024.
The goal of the QSA is participation and creating a space for those who have previously been excluded from sport.
Some participants had not played basketball for many years prior to the tournament, and for some it was their first time stepping onto the court.
The tournament and all QSA programs welcome both queer people and straight allies.
“It was like Mardi Gras, but for gays who love sports,” said participant Jethro Athlas.
“It was my dream come true.”
QSA president Stella Lesic said the tournament was important because it ensured players of any gender identity could participate.
“The tournament did not require any player to reveal themselves (unless they wanted to) or for a referee to assume their gender in order to apply mixed/gender basketball rules,” they said.
“Especially for players who are taking steps towards gender affirmation or who have experienced transphobia in sport, our tournament and the QLeague are changing the rules of the game.
“For the first time in basketball history, players could just play.”
Associate Professor Ada Cheung is a physician, scientist and endocrinologist specializing in the treatment of transgender people and sees the benefits that QSA brings to the community.
“What QSA does is beneficial, not just for queer people, but for everyone,” he says.
“(At) the grassroots level, there needs to be a lot more focus on participation (for gender diverse people).”
Bring queer people back to basketball
Athlas started playing basketball at age 11 and played until coming out as non-binary at age 23.
“I felt like I couldn’t present myself as myself with the binary rules of a regular competition and I didn’t have many other queer friends at the time to form a team that felt safe,” they said.
Fellow tournament participant Leigh Seelie had a similar story of quitting the sport after coming out as trans.
“I played on and off throughout my adulthood and stopped about four years ago when I started transitioning,” he said.
“I didn’t feel like my team captain would accept me because they had made several transphobic posts on Facebook.
“I didn’t find a new team because I was worried about how people would react when I played and I didn’t want to be the center of attention.
“When the (QSA) tournament came up, I was really excited to play… It felt like a great opportunity to get back into playing a sport that I loved.”
While Seelie initially felt “overwhelmed” to play in the tournament after some time away from the game, she said her team made her feel very welcome.
“I felt enormous joy to be able to be me and play a game I loved,” he said.
With more than 1,000 registered members across Australia, the QSA has also seen an influx of cisgender heterosexual men and women joining the club.
“QLeague is a joy,” said QSA regular and ally Greg Craske.
“Diversity is an incredible part of the league and comes with a lot of mutual support, even between teams.
“Everyone wants others to do well, especially those who don’t have experience.”
As an ally to the queer community, Craske sees key differences in the sporting environment that the QSA offers.
Craske transferred to the QSA after playing in all-male leagues.
“(In the QSA) I have never seen a technical foul, I have never seen the referee openly argue and I have never seen aggression between players,” Craske said.
“It’s refreshing and at my age I’m glad to leave all that behind.”
Trans participation lags behind
Just a A very small percentage of the trans community currently participates in sports..
The QSA is determined to change that and, since launching in 2015, has formed dozens of teams across the country.
This includes the QLeague in Naarm, which is designed to involve more trans and gender diverse people in sport.
Dr Cheung argued that such initiatives were critical in the context of current debates around trans participation in sport.
“I’ve been doing a lot of advocacy in this space because a lot of decisions and policies, even at the elite level, have been made based on fear and a lack of evidence and presuming that trans women are men, which is simply not true and not understand what current research really shows,” Dr. Cheung said.
While many sports continue to grapple with definitions of inclusion, Lesic dreams of the QSA becoming “the largest queer sports club on the planet,” appealing to everyone rather than finding more reasons to stop people from participating in sport.
Reflecting on the creation of the QSA and its evolution to what it is today, Lesic said: “We got there by focusing on ensuring that people sitting on the sidelines were our absolute priority. My future hope is that sport, from the community to the elite “Find a way to include everyone.”
ABC Sport has partnered with mermaid sport elevate coverage of Australian women in sport.
Courtney Fewquandie (she/her) is a proud Butchulla and Gubbi Gubbi woman and sports advocate specializing in diversity, equity and social justice.
Kirsty Marshall (she/her) is a video producer and digital content creator passionate about making community spaces more inclusive, specifically in a sporting context.