Hong Kong – The organizers describe it as a biggest sporting, artistic and cultural event inclusive in the world: the 11th gay games, delayed by one year and organized jointly by the cities of Hong Kong and Guadalajara, Mexico. They started on November 3rdAnd for the first time in 40 years of game history, they take place in a city in Latin America and another city in Asia.
More than 2,300 athletes from 45 countries, including the United States, Great Britain, South Korea and China, should participate in the Hong Kong Games, according to the organizers. Football is the main event this weekend.
The hunter, football, swimming, dynamophilia and athletics are among the events of this weekend in Guadalajara, according to that. Event website.
But according to some information, the number of athletes and spectators on the two sites is much lower than the standards set in previous Gay Games.
These games were initially planned for a single city, Hong Kong, at the same time last year. The intention was that the Gay Games 11 served as the organizers called “a glimmer of hope” for the LGBTQ+ community in a region led by China which disputes restrictions on the rights of homosexuals.
Although it is legal to be gay in China and that many of its major cities have a flourishing LGBTQ+ social scene, homosexual marriage and adoption by homosexuals are illegal and there is no legal protection against discrimination LGBTQ+.
For many officials of the Chinese government, being gay is “a harmful foreign influence that prevents young people from getting married and having children,” Darius Longarino, principal researcher at the Paul Tsai China Center of the Yale Law School, recently. NBC News.
This and the summer closure of Beijing LGBT Center By the government in May, confirmed the decision to divide the Gay Games 11 on two continents, which was first motivated by the strict Hong Kong protocols in terms of COVID, as Reuters reported. The organizers postponed the 12 -month -old games due to the city’s strict covid protocols, and it was decided to divide the competitions with the Guadalajara finalist, in western Mexico.
Although the places are more than 13,000 kilometers away, the organizers coordinated a series of sporting events under the slogan “Unity in diversity”.
“Anyone aged 18 and over is welcome,” said Hong Kong website website“Regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnic origin or even the level of training”.
Inclusion is not as much a problem for these gay games as the lack of participants and spectators.
The initial estimates for the 2022 event in Hong Kong provided 12,000 participants, 75,000 spectators and 3,000 volunteers from 100 countries. The 36 events had to include Dragon Boat Racing, Dodgeball and Esports.
But for 2023, Reuters reports that the recordings have fallen well below expectations, partly due to persistent concerns about COVVID and LGBTQ+ rights in China and concerns about security in Guadalajara, where crime and kidnappings are common.
A week ago, the organizers of Guadalajara had registered only 2,458 participants, and Hong Kong less than 2,400, for a total of 4,839 athletes. It is unheard of a gay game has less than 8,000 participants.
The games took place for the first time in San Francisco in 1982. The organizers boast that it is “one of the world’s largest events of this type”, according to the Gay Games 11 website, bringing together the People ”to live unforgettable moments of joy thanks to a unique combination of sport, community and culture.
But according to Reuters, what brings people together in Guadalajara, it is the criminals who attack visitors. The city is located in the state of Jalisco, where the drug cartels operate freely.
Wayne Morgan, a senior Australian athlete who has already participated in Six Gay Games, told Reuters that he had been drugged and stolen last year when he went to Guadalajara for a planning conference linked to the games of this year. He said he went to the police station and found himself in a long queue of other victims of criminal acts, where he was said to him: “it often happens”.
A spokesperson for the Gay Games Federation told Reuters that the decision to divide the event had a “significant impact on the number of registrations”, but added that the organizers estimated that the choice of two places “allowed Even more people from around the world to celebrate LGBTQ+ sports with us “.
But for Morgan, dividing host cities was “an error” and the small number could discourage business sponsorship in the future.
“At the bottom of my heart, I would like everything to be canceled and we can go to Valence in 2026,” he said. The next games are planned in Valence, Spain.
Taiwanese competitors withdrew their registration for the Hong Kong event in August, fearing that their participants were arrested if they wore the island’s flag or used its name. Human rights activists have called for the cancellation of games in Hong Kong, accusing the organizers of aligning themselves on “pro-authoritarian personalities responsible for a general persecution against the population of Hong Kong”.
In response to the small number of registrations, the organizers of Hong Kong have canceled several events, including grass hockey and 7 rugby as well as some in the athletics category.
The Gay Games 11 take place until November 11.
