Sarah and Maria explored several areas of the gym and even tried out a few moves on steppers before Jen finally asked the employee to take a closer look at the duo’s outfits. Two brave girls went to a gym wearing almost nothing but body paint in an attempt to see whether other gym-goers would even notice. I recall him looking in through our lounge window and he saw us being affectionate towards each other. I believe that is when he started behaving in this way.

The victims have had to move house following this. There was hostility at the time. It seems the defendant looked through their window and saw them being affectionate to one another."Whether they’re playing in a basketball league after work or doing business at the bar, men have long had access to this ‘Old Boy’s Network’ that women have been excluded from,” Shear explained. “When I saw our running group laughing, socializing, and networking well past midnight, I knew there was a need for this.” Queer-only fitness classes may offer the similar community-making magic that the bars once did, but they've also been making fitness more accessible to the LGBTQ+ community for the first time. “The reason queer and transgender folks haven’t been participating in the fitness scene is because there have never been opportunities for us," says Dean T., yoga instructor of Naked In Motion’s Women's & Trans class. He described the two women as 'naughty disrespectful girls' and in his eyes he has not done anything wrong. He is very rigid in his thinking and outlook." When the club closed, Gina was very sad but knew that she couldn’t take it over by herself. The documentary Gateways Grind is a way of restoring its history, which is enmeshed with her own, and to see her parents again. I felt like I could never fully relax when I was at home and I felt like Kim was trying to make our lives as uncomfortable as possible in an attempt to make us move. We loved our home and we have spent a lot of money on it and we should not feel like we are being forced out of it.

Unfortunately, there aren’t too many lifting federations that are truly inclusive of LGBTQ+ lifters. Almost all bodybuilding and powerlifting competitions (sanctioned and otherwise) have only two gender categories, which often explicitly exclude trans and nonbinary lifters from competing. Still, you’ve got some options if you’re a queer lifter and want to leave it all on the platform. International Association of Trans Bodybuilders and Powerlifters (United States) If you’re a queer young adult and can’t afford to get involved in strength athletics or pay for your local CrossFit box, The OUT Foundation’s OUTAthlete program provides financial support for LGBTQ+ young adult strength athletes, as well as goal coaching and nutrition counseling. OUTHealthIf you’re looking for one-on-one personal training, there are also plenty of LGBTQ+ fitness coaches to choose from! OUTAthlete Trolls aside, social media platforms have helped educate and promote positive messages about the LGBT community. I regularly see top gay female athletes – from Billie Jean King and Llana Kloss, to Caster Semenya and her wife Violet Raseboya – share their daily life with their fans, which includes talking about and sharing their relationships. For the young people following their sporting idols they will see what I never did: women of all different shapes, sizes, races and religions being completely at ease with their sexuality. When I went to other people’s houses I would find them extraordinarily suffocating and conventional. There’d be this ghastly father who was a boring old fart and a mother who was terribly uptight,” she recalls. “I was glad to go home to the laughter and fun. There was a lot more conversation, and I had a lot more access to my parents than my friends did to theirs. I could say what I wanted as well.” All-time powerlifting record holder and trans legend Janae Marie is definitely an athlete to look up to for her raw strength on and off the platform. Shawn Stinson The more LGBTQ+ people experience interpersonal and structural queerphobia, the worse LGBTQ+ mental health becomes, according to The Trevor Project’s 2019 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health. As fitness lovers have long-since known, working out can be very useful for improving your mental health (despite those paradoxical days when your mental health makes working out feel impossible).

There was always speculation about the relationship between her mother and Smithy. On her death bed, her daughter finally asked her about it. “I said: ‘People always ask me, Mum, and I hate to ask you but were you and Smithy lovers?’ And she said: ‘Everybody always assumed that Smithy was madly in love with me and that I was playing her along. But no we weren’t, and the reason for that was that Smithy didn’t want it.’ West Ham captain Gilly Flaherty said in her recent interviews that dealing with the fact she was gay and not knowing how to handle it played a role in her attempted suicide at 17 years old. It would take me until the age of 22 to finally come out to my mum. That’s roughly eight years of my life spent continuously lying to the closest people to me. It took another decade to be fully comfortable with my sexuality. As former Wales rugby star Gareth Thomas said: “I’m not sure if it was because I was gay that I felt such depression, it was just that I was lying to everyone.”

And there were simply no visible role models to challenge this lazy stereotyping. I didn’t know any lesbians when I was growing up, the internet was in its infancy then, and I certainly never saw any on TV. As a transmasculine powerlifter — with a bunch of trans friends who lift — I know that the empowerment that comes from getting under a barbell that weighs much more than you is… immense. If you’ve lifted and have loved it, no matter your gender, you probably know the sensation of literal empowerment I’m talking about. For me and a bunch of trans lifting pals, strength sports create a connection with your body that is more about what you can do than what you can look like or what gender people assume you are. For me, lifting has massively decreased my dysphoria, which is another great advantage of lifting for trans folks. Community-Building It is presented by Sandi Toksvig, who recalls her own visits to the club, and has interviews with former members. It is sharp, snappy, sassy and sexy – oh, and of course, very sapphic, too. The Gateways Grind, we learn, was a particularly popular dance there where tightly meshed groin action became literally orgasmic. LGBTQ+ communities in strength sports are abundant — you just have to know where to look. The lists above are by no means exhaustive, so keep searching for more and keep creating queer lifting communities of your own, wherever you are.

My experiences coincided with the introduction of Section 28, controversial legislation that banned the promotion of homosexuality in British schools, making it illegal for teachers to even discuss the possibility of same sex relationships. I started school the year after the law came in, and as a result we had no education about sexuality. The only thing we knew about the word lesbian was that it was used as a weapon to humiliate or offend girls who didn’t fit the norm – ugly, strange, sporty or muscly. When I was called a lesbian I denied it, rejected it with disgust. Shamefully I used it against other girls, too, because it was the ultimate insult. Starting secondary school, tomboy suddenly became “lesbian”. Wanting to wear a pair of Adidas poppers to “no uniform” day at school made me a lesbian. Having a haircut like Phil Neville made me a lesbian. Wanting to watch and play sport with the boys, wanting to grow muscles so I could be better at sport, all added up to me being called a lesbian. Founded to advocate and fundraise for trans powerlifters, Pull for Pride is dedicated to encouraging all lifters and federations to #ShareThePlatform with trans athletes. When you love deadlifting and equity in sports — and how could you not? — Pull for Pride has got you covered. Athlete Ally I said: ‘What?’ And she said: ‘Lesbians! You know, women with women.’ So I was, like: ‘Really? Really?’”

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Okay, so you’re a queer strength athlete. You know where you can compete if you want to, and you’ve looked into a handful of different organizations that provide education and advocacy around LGBTQ+ issues in sports. Now, you’re ready to start forming your own community and supporting yourself in your athletic journey. These services, groups, and grants can hook you up with everything you need off the platform to support you on the platform. The OUTFoundation The stereotypes were designed to put women off playing sport. Sporty women were not really women, in the same way that lesbians weren’t seen as proper women either. Lou Englefield, the director of Pride Sport and campaign director of FootballvHomophobia, confirms that this matches her own experiences of coaching girls in football. “I saw on many occasions teenage girls being called names by teenage boys: ‘Oh you’re a man because you want to play football’. Words like manly and butch were thrown around. The policing of gender and policing of women happens from a really young age. And in reality the reason girls gave up football was because of gender stereotypes. They didn’t want to be seen as butch or athletic or masculine because they wanted boys to fancy them.” Jen Seidel and her painting partner designed a purple, grey and pink ensemble on Maria, complete with faux capri pants. Sarah, meanwhile, seemed to be sporting a grey and hot pink outfit with a geometrical pattern. We make it a point to avoid the kind of discourse that might make some women feel uncomfortable,” she explained to me after we clinked glasses of vino. “There’s no talk about bikini body prepping or losing weight. I don’t want to feel like just because I’m doing these crunches that I can’t have my wine!” Amen to that.