The Gay Games: The Play of Sexuality, Sport - Victoria University ...

sanctionmg can undermine the inclusive principles of the Gay Games. This was
brought to a head during the Sydney 2002 Gay Games.
The intemationalisation of the Gay Games movement is analysed withm tiie context
of diverse sex/gender systems worldwide and the impact of global gay and lesbian
identity formation. Chapter Five, entitied "Going global" achieves this in its
examination of the intemationalisation and commercialisation of the Gay Games
movement throughout Gay Games III, IV and V, and the establishment of the FGG.
Whilst identity politics was dominant during the Gay Games of the 1980s, the
diversity of the GLBTQI communities had given greater emphasis to difference
politics during the 1990s. This is also examined in relation to community politics and
inclusive policies and practices of the Gay Games, and especially those conceming
gender and sexuality.
The final chapter entitled "Transexed Conundrums" re-focuses on sex, gender,
sexuality and sport at the Gay Games. The essentialised binaries of male/female,
masculinity/femininity and heterosexual/homosexual so prominently displayed,
reinforced and conserved in the mainstream sport world do not fit the communities
engaged by the Gay Games. The inclusion of transgender and intersex peoples in the
sports program of the Games highlights this problematic. Chapter Six explores this
issue in-depth, bringing out the major ambiguities and tensions of staging a mass-
participatory sport and cultural event that aims to mamstream the diverse GLBTQI
communities of the Games whilst at the same time seeks to be radically inclusive. A
liberal consumer model of mass program offerings to general and niche groupings or
'markets' through regular sport, as well as cultural and human rights events and
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