Help us keep the Gay Games alive! 

The Gay Games were launched in San Francisco in 1982 by Dr. Tom Waddell upon the principles of Participation, Inclusion, and Personal Best. Since then, the Gay Games have empowered thousands of LGBT athletes and artists through sport, culture, and fellowship.

As we quickly approach our  35th anniversary however, it appears the mission and the quadrennial event itself will be dead after Gay Games X in Paris in 2018. 

A recent notice from the board of the Federation of Gay Games said that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Gay and Lesbian International Sports Association, producer of the rival World Outgames, to host a joint quadrennial event starting in 2022.

In effect, the Gay Games as we know them will be no more. Unlike the Gay Games, GLISA's World Outgames have not had robust bid competition from prospective hosts; choosing event sites by a process that allows for proxy voting; and relying on holding conferences and workshops rather than sports and culture to advance human rights.

The FGG said it was guided by a survey last year to undertake the steps for a merged event with conferences being included. That survey was actually from a broad range of people in and out of the Gay Games movement, including many who had never been to a Gay Games or who believed sports were not an important component.

The most comprehensive true survey of Gay Games participants was taken after the 2002 Gay Games in Sydney. In it, participants overwhelmingly rejected the idea of using host resources to stage conferences, workshops and parties; and affirmed a program emphasizing inclusive sports with a minor cultural component. Those results were the basis of a 2003 white paper called the "Image of the Gay Games" that dictated the parameters under which subsequent Gay Games have been held.

While the FGG and GLISA have worked to collect approximately 2,000 votes from a closed and unidentified group of constituents in support of this motion, leaving the mass majority of participants, lifetime members, volunteers, supporters, family and friends little to no say in what happens - we deserve to have our voices heard as well. 

Today, we ask that all advocates show their support by signing this petition, and letting the FGG and GLISA know how many people value the experience that the Gay Games currently provides, and would like to safeguard it and its original mission going forward.