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May 10,1990 • Southern Voice/19
FEATURE
The 1990 Gay Games
and Cultural Festival
August 5-11
in Vancouver, British Columbia
and don't be left without a hotel room!
Mon-Fri: 9AM-7PM Sat: 10AM-2PM
Evett Bennett
The Atlanta Eclipse: Seated Arthur Tye of The Pear Garden (team sponsor) and Jeff Holt (team
manager); standing Alonzo Wade, Julius Wilson, Eugene McCrary (team manager).
player in the league" says the growth is due to the
fact that "once people get involved they stay
involved. Unlike other sports where the better you
are the more welcome you are," here the focus is not
on winning but on closeness.
Soccer players find it easy to be close because of
the physical contact inherent in the game. "If you
pile on top of someone while playing, its easier to
hug them later."
"I promote that closeness, I try to hug everyone at
the practices even if they are new," he said.
The soccer team is promoting the closeness of all the
Games' athletes by hosting a "Skin Party at Rio"
from 10pm 'til midnight on May 18, the night before
the Gay Carnival (see sidebar) that is the major fund
raiser for Southeastern athletes who plan to attend
the Games.
Unlike the soccer players, Shelton Haynie and
the other four swimmers from Atlanta who are going
to the Games rarely see one another.
"A group of swimmers cannot provide the same
social outlet that other athletic organizations can,"
said Haynie. "At a swim practice, there isn't going to
be constant chatter or interaction."
He does feel that there is an awareness of the other
swimmers though, "You are always very aware of
the speed of the others...! get into a rhythm and get
really fired up like a runner's high."
Haynie explained that the swimmers speak to each
other over the phone but seldom get together to prac
tice because of lack of public pool space.
Competition is the reason Haynie and the other
swimmers are going to the Games. "We want to
win," he said.
"It's more a social event than anything else,"
says Dick Rose, one of the two Atlanta croquet play
ers going to Vancouver. Once in Canada he'll "do as
many things as I possibly can. It's going to be a great
event, if you're not there, you'll be sorry that you
weren't," warns Rose.
He added that the games will also serve as a polit
ical statement. "Anytime a large number of mem
bers of the gay community gather together in one
place it will be political..."
"Its important that people see us. The more peo
ple hear 'lesbian and gay' the more they realize we're
here and we're not a hell of a lot different than every
one else."
AH told, Atlanta will field nearly 300 competi
tors in 17 sports in Vancouver this August. And
whether your goal is political, social or going for the
gold that’s a far cry from four years ago. And it's
"just the beginning" of organized gay and lesbian
athletics in the Southeast says a proud Lucas.
Evett Bennett
Andrea Getty is one of only six lesbians from
Atlanta registered at the Games.
cancel. Kidd noted that the softball league's World Series is
in Pittsburgh in August, the same month as the Games. She
stressed that the Series is a major conflict for a large group
of lesbian Atlantans because of the need for time-off from
work and money to travel cross country twice in one month.
Another woman who has attended Games meetings sug
gested that if a woman had been one of the main organizers
early on in the planning, that more lesbians might have got
ten involved. While she says "there is no one to blame but
ourselves," she adds that some of the pre-Games events
"seemed to be mainly for men, like the skin party at Rio,
planned for May 18.”
Getty and Kidd said that they haven't felt uncomfortable
because of the male organizers but Kidd stressed that the
combination of conflicts did make it easy for women to not
be involved.
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General Practice
Where are the Women?
by Matt Montgomery
"There are not enough people of color and not enough
women involved," said Larry Lucas, Southeastern
Coordinator for Gay Games III.
Almost 300 Southeastern athletes plan to attend the
Games. But Brian Fair, Operations Manager at the
Vancouver Games headquarters, reports that only 25 women
have registered from Georgia and Florida. Six are from
Atlanta and none are from Tennessee nor Alabama.
The lack of equal participation is unique to the Southeast.
Nationally, 47 percent of the Games' athletes and partici
pants are female.
Andrea Getty, one of the woman participants from
Atlanta, said that going to the Games is a big "coming out
statement as well as a financial commitment that many aren't
willing to make."
Betsy Kidd had planned to attend the Games but had
trouble getting a whole team to commit to going so had to