Yit-seul’s Gender Prism: The Queer Women Sports Day struggles to find a
venue
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By Yit-seul
Published Oct. 9, 2017
Translated by Marilyn
Hook
Editor’s note: Gender Prism is a column in
which feminists in their twenties and thirties voice their thoughts. Yit-seul
is a member of “Total Byeontae[1]”,
a network of queer feminists who act, speak, and think about the world.
The “1st Queer Women’s Sports Meet” (tagline: “The Game Has
Begun”) was supposed to be held on October 21st. But on September 13th,
the venue, Yangcheon-gu Sports Center, suddenly cancelled the event reservation
due to construction. The organizers hurriedly changed the venue to the
Dongdaemun-gu Gymnasium, finishing the reservation process on September 19th.
But within a week, their reservation had been cancelled again.
On September 25th, Dongdaemun-gu Gymnasium officials made
several calls to the Queer Women Network, the organizers of the sports meet.
They claimed that people were calling the gym to complain about the event and
said that it might be cancelled for moral and safety reasons. The next day, they informed the Queer Women
Network that they would be repairing water leaks in the gymnasium’s roof on
October 21st and had cancelled the event reservation.
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| A transcript of a call between Queer Women Network and
the Dongdaemun-gu Gymnasium. ⓒ Queer Women Network |
The Queer Women Network members organizing the sports day tried to
persuade the gym officials over the phone several times, and even met with the
reservation official and their boss in person to try to understand the
situation and negotiate. But all they got were incoherent excuses and
insubstantial apologies like “we’re sorry” and “please understand”.
We just wanted to have a sports day
It was a sports day. Knowing that a lot of female gender minorities like
sports and that there is a lot of interest and support for female athletes and
athletes who’ve come out, we just expected to have a fun time. We just wanted
to play badminton and futsal, have a relay race and a free-throw contest, and
so on. We were stressed about planning the sports day with just a few
organizers, but we never would have expected that the impassable barrier of
repeated reservation cancellations awaited us.
I realized that physical activity – that is, using your body, flinging
yourself around, rolling, sometimes pushing or hurling your opponent – is a
positive thing for non-men when I participated in a self-defense training
program several times. The stereotype that women can’t compete with men is
strong in the sports world, but it also proffers the message, “Through practice
and training, you can improve your ability and become competitive.” People
saying that women are “born weak” and emphasizing sex differences causes women
to lose interest in sports, but it also gives them a powerful motivation to
learn about and improve their physical abilities through sports.
Especially since I’ve heard from several people that I know that one’s
sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, etc., can make it more
difficult to get involved in sports, I was looking forward to the Queer Women’s
Sports Day. People think that all “women’s spaces” are comfortable for female
gender minorities, but there’s no guarantee that they are places in which
female gender minorities can honestly and freely express themselves. I’ve heard
many people say they hesitate to or feel uncomfortable participating in
programs that target women in general, and I have experienced this as well. I
hoped for a women’s sports event that would be fun for anyone who participated,
but most enjoyable for gender minorities.
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| Women find it difficult to get into sports because of the belief that they are “weak”, but also have a strong desire to test and improve their physical skills through sports. (Image: pixabay.com) |
We don’t like that kind of gym, either
Even though they say that about 10% of the population are gender
minorities, or that there are as many gender minorities as there are people
with the blood type AB (whether or not that’s true), no Korean athletes have
ever come out publicly. During the upcoming PyeongChang Winter Olympics, how
will the South Korean media report on gender minority athletes?
So we dreamed of, after the “1st Queer Women’s Sports Meet”,
forming a team to compete in an international gender minorities sports day.
What a happy dream. We were going to raise money for this great first attempt –
but then we were slammed with these reservation cancellations. I can’t
understand Dongdaemun-gu’s decision. According to article 3 (“Citizens’ Right
to Life Sports”) of the Life Sports Promotion Act, “All citizens must be able
to enjoy access to life sports without facing any sort of discrimination.” This
is very true. So why are we being discriminated against?
The Queer Women’s Sports Day was intended as a variation on the Queer
Women’s Speaking Event that was held in fall in 2015 and 2016. The Queer Women
Network, the organizer of these events, was formed as a result of continued
activity and concern after the “2015 Women Sexual Minorities Rally: Ain’t I a
Woman?” held as part of attempts to address the discrimination against gender
minorities shown in the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family’s version of
gender equality. With the aim of connecting gender equality, gender minority
rights, and the feminist movement through the voices of diverse female gender
minorities, more than 100 people gather in spring to participate in a marathon
carrying a rainbow flag and picket signs reading “There is no gender equality
without gender minority rights”, and in fall, there is an event with more than
200 people to increase the visibility of female gender minorities. And this
year, unexpectedly, we ended up planning not just the sports day but also a
rally.
The “2017 Women Gender Minorities Rally” to protest Dongdaemun-gu Gymnasium’s
reservation cancellation will be held on October 18 at 7 p.m. (location TBA).
And there are plans to hold the “1st Queer Women’s Sports Meet” at a
better location soon. After all, if the gymnasium discriminates against gender
minorities, we don’t like them either. What’s more, if it’s actually true that
there’s a leak in the roof, then we are even less inclined to hold our
important first sports day there.
※ Queer Women Network
-Facebook: facebook.com/queerwomen
-Twitter: @queerwomennw
-Email: queerwomenkr@gmail.com
*Original article: http://www.ildaro.com/sub_read.html?uid=8019§ion=sc5
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