Page 989 - Week 03 - Thursday, 10 April 2014
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Sadly, many choose not to participate in sport at all, even though the research shows they have a very strong desire to do so. Others have adopted a range of strategies to ensure safe participation in their sport that includes trying to pass themselves off as straight in their sporting environment, which is not a particularly healthy way forward. It creates feelings of guilt and certainly a significant fear about being found out.
Others refuse to stay silent and are open or visible in regard to their sexuality or gender, or confront the stereotypes that exist. Some create and play for queer teams within mainstream sports. Nevertheless, each strategy presents challenges for the individual and does not remove the potential for discrimination, harassment and bullying to occur. Whilst a range of research, projects, policies, campaigns and programs have been implemented to deal specifically with harassment and discrimination based on sex, race and disability, little has been done to address harassment and discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Until the ACT government and a few other state governments stepped up to the plate, very little had been done to address or even acknowledge issues regarding gender identity and transgenderism in sport. To address this at the local level, LGBTI people in the ACT were invited to complete a survey in the second-half of last year which sought to find out more about their sport and recreational experiences.
It was the first sport-specific study of its type conducted in the ACT and will complement other research that has been undertaken nationally, such as the 2010 Victorian “come out to play” research project and the Scottish “out for sport” research project published in 2012. The ACT’s inclusive sport survey report will be published in June this year. I can advise that 318 people participated in the ACT survey, from which 292 active surveys were used in the data analysis. Twenty-six participants were excluded from the local analysis because they did not live in the ACT or in any of the surrounding regions.
The key findings to date include that the most common mainstream sports and recreation activities identified in the survey included football and soccer at 12.9 per cent followed by weights-circuits at 8.4 per cent and group fitness at 7.1 per cent. In terms of participation, 37.1 per cent of respondents were “not out” regarding their sexuality or being transgender and over 40 per cent of respondents felt unsafe in a sporting environment.
Around a third of respondents experienced verbal homophobia or bullying in sport; 7.1 per cent of respondents experienced verbal harassment or bullying in sport based on being transgender or intersex; and a distressing 4.4 per cent of survey respondents have experienced physical assault as a result of their participation in sport. Over 50 per cent of respondents did not know if their club or recreation provider had policies around safety and inclusion for LGBTI people or anti-discrimination policies regarding sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status. Pleasingly, though, in this survey over 18 per cent of participants identified as transgender. So I think this represents the most significant sample and level of participation by that community.
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