Gay Games

And that prevents people from getting too cool with their car.

And I said they should do the same thing with the Gay Games.

My thing is there could be some straight ringers in there.

You know what I mean?

You're in a full sprint, you know? [laughs]

[laughs]

They're dragging jewelry behind them, and y- y- you know, how do we know? And I said, "Here's how you do it with the Gay Games.

You just line up all the participants.

He speaks in Europe and in North America.

In 1994, at the Gay Games in New York, he helps to open the ceremonies.

Everywhere he goes, he carries the same message: These struggles belong together, and at home, the biggest door of all is beginning to open.

South Africa is writing a new constitution, the founding law of a free country.

He travels the world.

He speaks in Europe and in North America.

In 1994, at the Gay Games in New York, he helps to open the ceremonies.

Everywhere he goes, he carries the same message: These struggles belong together.

So before getting to Upstate New York, I also was part of...

You know, um, I don't know if you recall the Gay Games in 1994.

Of course.

Yeah.

She ended up, you know, being part of To Wong Foo, the movie.

And, um, and so they, and they...

One of, it was one of the largest fundraisers that Gay Games had, was our little party, the Manolo party.

So-

Gay pride was a big thing, so it's 25 years since Stonewall.

It was, it also coincided with the Gay Games being held in New York, so it was, like, super gay.

And I remember looking around, like, went to clubs, went to the para- you know, went to so many different things and just seeing, you know, tens of thousands of gay people, um, trans people, drag queens, lesbians.

Um, and I just remember thinking, "The haters are never gonna win.

And so, again, this was a hard-fought battle.

Then all of a sudden, I would say at first the homosexual community got involved in this, and they wanted to have something called the Gay Olympics.

And the Olympic Committee, who owns the right to the Olympic Games, said, no, you can't call it the Gay Olympics, and so they called it the Gay Games.

And I'm not real sure that they still do this, but this was a big deal for some time.

Then all of a sudden, the transgender movement got involved in this.

It is, and it's 2-1.

The big headlines out here in San Francisco concern what was called the Gay Olympics.

But they can't use the word Olympics anymore.

There's one out here.

which is how I entered back into powerlifting.

That's why I got involved with the LGBT Powerlifting Union, to which I'm currently president of, and will be competing in Valencia in the Gay Games in June.

And I was at the last Gay Games in Mexico, in Guadalajara, where we had the first ever MX powerlifting competitions because we made them inclusive of non-binary and trans people and that was hopefully the direction we were going in but as you can see things can change quite rapidly and trying to have those categories to allow people to again identify and compete and be who they are and not feel they have to be shoehorned into a different place or a place they're not comfortable with is really important but that's why sport plays such a major part in my life not that I desperately need to go back to the gym I haven't actually been for about a couple of months I need to get back into shape for June but I also think sport is an area of resilience is a place where you can go to and just get out of the humdrum of everyday sort of activity and whether it's on the golf course and feeling quite, you know, alone in a way, but actually it's sometimes very re-energizing to do it.

Or powerlifting in the gym, which is finally more tricky in the sense of the gym is normally busy and I'm not a great fan of really busy outlets, I do like to have my space and some quiet time to do these kind of things.

Oh, me too.