Pride Movement sports codes. Dan Borrett, Jess Cox, Lynn O’Brien and Bob Lees. Photo: Nicholas Ward.
Sports have not always been a friendly place for LGBT+ people, but a new non-profit is aiming to improve inclusion and visibility ahead of SpringOUT in November, Canberra’s Pride Month.
Pride Movement is a new group that brings together sports codes across the ACT to empower and encourage LGBT+ people in sports by raising visibility and advocating for emerging groups.
Launched on a chilly August morning in Deakin, the organisation has scheduled its first visibility event – a queer sports festival titled Sport your Pride – for November as part of SpringOUT.
Pride Movement’s president Bob Lees said they were seeing great support in the community.
“The idea is to increase participation of LGBTIQ people and make sport a safe and welcoming place for LGBTIQ people. Sport is a great way to include people and develop that feeling of belonging and safety,” he said.
“I think sport has become more inclusive, but we’ve still got a long way to go. It’s all about visibility and breaking down stereotypes about what gay means.”
Bob approached SpringOUT two years ago to display Rugby matches. In 2024, a few other codes joined in for the Diversity in Rugby and Pride Sports Festival. Bob said the Grid Iron matches were especially popular.
After the success of the last two years, Bob decided to bring a few groups together to form Pride Movement to promote inclusivity in sports.
Their first event, Sport your Pride, has 12 clubs signed up to show off their skills and engage in a few friendly matches to illustrate the group’s mantra ‘Move, Play, Belong’.
Hockey ACT’s Dan Burritt, one of the early codes to join the new non-profit, said it’s about letting people know they’re safe and accepted.
“For me, it’s about trying to reduce that stigma and trying to just promote that everyone’s accepted in sport, regardless of what level, regardless of what gender, what sexuality, all that sort of stuff. It’s massively important that there are more role models in the top levels, but right down at the grassroots level.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by teammate Jess Cox, who said that while she’s played, there’s been an increase in players who are ‘out’.
“For me, it was about ensuring that the next generation does feel safe and included, and that hockey is going to be a safe and inclusive place.”
The festival will be part of November’s SpringOUT Pride Month. This year marks just the third time LGBT+ sports have been part of the celebration.
SpringOUT’s Lynne O’Brien said fostering inclusion and visibility in sport was a really important step in society.
“This has grown over two years, and I think it’s incredibly important because sport is one way that people are all even on the field. You know that we’re all the same, we’ve got a goal, we’re playing sport.”
For many in the queer sporting community, including Bob, fostering acceptance is deeply personal.
“I didn’t come out until quite late in life,” Bob explains.
“I didn’t think sport was a safe place to be out as a gay man, and about 10 years ago I started going to Sydney and playing gay and inclusive rugby with the Sydney Convicts, who were the first gay-inclusive club in Australia. That made a massive difference to how I felt about myself, and gave me that feeling of belonging and community.”
For more information, visit SpringOUT.
