LGBTQ+ is an invisible minority

In inclusion work, many focus on how many—or how few—members of a minority are currently in the club. They observe a low number of participants from a specific minority and assume that inclusion means making the club open so that more people from outside will want to join. They see inclusion primarily as external communication, almost as a recruitment strategy. Here, it’s important to remember that queer people often differ from many other minorities in that they are an invisible minority.

Because you can’t necessarily see who is queer, it’s easy to assume there are none in your club simply because no one is openly out.From that, many conclude that homophobia or transphobia isn’t an issue in their environment because they don’t have any queer athletes. This is a problematic mindset, as we’ve shown in this report—it can have many unintended negative consequences.

Inclusion efforts for queer individuals should be understood as internal communication for two main reasons:

1. Everyone in the club - also all straight members - should know that they must contribute to making the community safe.
2. It is not unlikely that LGBTQ+ people are already in the club even if you don’t know about it, and it is therefore important to give them the security to be themselves and the peace to develop as athletes.

That’s why clubs must not wait to start inclusion efforts until someone comes out. In fact, the very absence of openly queer members might suggest the need to ask whether the environment is open, inclusive, and welcoming enough.