How Dutch LGBTQ+ Sports Clubs Offer More Than Just the Game

A mural of a tennis player in Groningen © Sam Maguire

The first time Anneke went to the LGBTQ+ sporting event, GayGames in Amsterdam she was surprised to see so many people that looked like her. It was 1997, she looked around her and saw others from her community, playing sports and having fun. “That’s what you give when you’re in a volleyball team of women who love women. And that’s what it gives to you.”

Now Anneke is the secretary of Goud Groningen, a sports club for LGBTQ+ people from Groningen and its surroundings. The group was founded in 1997 after a visit to the GayGames, “in Groningen, they wanted to participate too and that’s why they started with a few people, a volleyball team for men and a volleyball team for women”, she told The Glass Room.

The group now has 38 members, who play volleyball and badminton, as well as a swimming offshoot called Zwem Goud. They regularly compete in annual tournaments with other LGBTQ+ groups around Europe. This year they are busy planning for an Autumn tournament in Paris.

Beach volleyball court at Groningen's Zernike Sportcampus © Sam Maguire

Exact numbers of the amount of these associations in the Netherlands are unknown. However, the European Gay and Lesbian Sport Federation represents 20,000 athletes across Europe, and there are a number of tournaments such as the Dutch Lesbian* Tennis Open, the EuroGames and GayGames which regularly take place within the Netherlands.

When it comes to the future of these associations, Aneek says that numbers have declined since Goud Groningen’s beginnings in the 90s and the members are getting older each year. This she accredits to a growing acceptance of LGBTQ+ people in the Netherlands. She recalls asking her nephew if he wanted to join a gay men’s tennis association in his home city of Amsterdam. He replied saying that everyone he plays with knows he is gay, so he has no need to join a specific team. “Thank God it's changed,” she says. “It’s not a problem anymore to be out as a sportsman or woman.”

Despite this, the LGBTQ+ advocacy group ILGA-Europe reports that homophobic and discriminatory chants at football games increased in 2024, prompting the Dutch football federation KNVB to bring in countermeasures. As well as this, 2020 research by the Mulier Institute found that 62% of gay and lesbian athletes faced verbal discrimination about their sexuality in sports clubs.

For many people in the associations, the sport comes secondary to the community they offer. Conor, who plays with the association Queer Badminton Amsterdam says that this was his main reason for joining four months ago. “I’d never played with a gay sports team before,” he told The Glass Room, “I decided I wanted to do it as part of my New Year's resolution which was to make more gay friends.”

He is also planning on taking part in a tournament, namely the Stockholm Wide Open this summer. For him, the tournament is also mostly a fun, social occasion. He has been a part of other sports clubs that are not queer-focused and said that in comparison, the queer group’s atmosphere is “a bit more jovial. People I would say are slightly less competitive, although still pretty competitive.”

Anneke mirrored this sentiment and said that for the women’s volleyball team, what she values is the sense of community and togetherness she feels amongst her teammates. “The most important thing for us is what we call the third part of the game. And that's getting into the cafe and having a beer.”