He lived in Cheyne Walk, and would pass by the Gateways to get to the King’s Road. “And my mum would be outside, taking deliveries, doing the laundry or whatever, and she said that he used to stop and talk quite often. Trolls aside, social media platforms have helped educate and promote positive messages about the LGBT community. I regularly see top gay female athletes – from Billie Jean King and Llana Kloss, to Caster Semenya and her wife Violet Raseboya – share their daily life with their fans, which includes talking about and sharing their relationships. For the young people following their sporting idols they will see what I never did: women of all different shapes, sizes, races and religions being completely at ease with their sexuality. Ted married an Italian actress, Gina Cerrato, in 1953 (they had a daughter, also named Gina, a year later) and the couple ran the club with Gina’s right-hand woman, Smithy, a former member of the US Air Force from California. They turned it into a women-only venue in 1967. After Ted’s death in 1979, Gina kept the club running but its last night was in 1985. She died in 2001. The OUTFoundation isn’t a gym itself, but the LGBTQ+ fitness org can help you find inclusive gyms (and trainers) near you — both IRL and online. If you want to learn from and work out with LGBTQ+ trainers during the pandemic, The OUTfoundation is featuring Zoom fitness classesby different LGBTQ+ instructors each week (as part of a campaign that is called, naturally, #werkfromhome). The OUTFoundation’s inclusive gym locator will also help you find a queer-friendly gym near you, so you don’t have to take those terrifying first steps into a potentially queer-phobic club without having your homework done for you in advance.

Unfortunately, there aren’t too many lifting federations that are truly inclusive of LGBTQ+ lifters. Almost all bodybuilding and powerlifting competitions (sanctioned and otherwise) have only two gender categories, which often explicitly exclude trans and nonbinary lifters from competing. Still, you’ve got some options if you’re a queer lifter and want to leave it all on the platform. International Association of Trans Bodybuilders and Powerlifters (United States) I felt like I could never fully relax when I was at home and I felt like Kim was trying to make our lives as uncomfortable as possible in an attempt to make us move. We loved our home and we have spent a lot of money on it and we should not feel like we are being forced out of it. He described the two women as 'naughty disrespectful girls' and in his eyes he has not done anything wrong. He is very rigid in his thinking and outlook." We all go through phases in life when we are curious about a lot of things—a girl may be curious about the body of another girl, but that doesn’t make her a lesbian, even if they take a bath together. I never wanted to know why she wished to see me naked. We never chose that moment to step into the bathroom of a girl's hostel together. We did it because we were curious.Sport should be about representing all different types of women no matter their sexuality, or how they present themselves. It should not be about who you are in a relationship with or what you look like. Ultimately the only thing you should be judged on is your sporting performance and whether you are a good team-mate.

Shawn Stinson is a two-time trans bodybuilding champion and personal trainer whose offerings include online training that you can access from anywhere. JayCee Cooper Starting secondary school, tomboy suddenly became “lesbian”. Wanting to wear a pair of Adidas poppers to “no uniform” day at school made me a lesbian. Having a haircut like Phil Neville made me a lesbian. Wanting to watch and play sport with the boys, wanting to grow muscles so I could be better at sport, all added up to me being called a lesbian. When I went to other people’s houses I would find them extraordinarily suffocating and conventional. There’d be this ghastly father who was a boring old fart and a mother who was terribly uptight,” she recalls. “I was glad to go home to the laughter and fun. There was a lot more conversation, and I had a lot more access to my parents than my friends did to theirs. I could say what I wanted as well.” Strength sports are an excellent source of joy, empowerment, and confidence-building for so many people, not to mention the physical and mental health boosts a solid lifting session (or several) will give you. Two brave girls went to a gym wearing almost nothing but body paint in an attempt to see whether other gym-goers would even notice.

The victims have had to move house following this. There was hostility at the time. It seems the defendant looked through their window and saw them being affectionate to one another." LGBTQ+ communities in strength sports are abundant — you just have to know where to look. The lists above are by no means exhaustive, so keep searching for more and keep creating queer lifting communities of your own, wherever you are. I recall him looking in through our lounge window and he saw us being affectionate towards each other. I believe that is when he started behaving in this way. She was 13 when she discovered for the first time about the club’s clientele and purpose. “It was Sunday lunchtime and my mother and I were washing up after lunch. She said: ‘I want to talk to you about something because you’re going to hear about this at school. You do know what the club is, don’t you?’ I said: ‘What do you mean?It’s a club,’ and she said: ‘It’s a lesbian club, Gina.’

When the club closed, Gina was very sad but knew that she couldn’t take it over by herself. The documentary Gateways Grind is a way of restoring its history, which is enmeshed with her own, and to see her parents again.As a transmasculine powerlifter — with a bunch of trans friends who lift — I know that the empowerment that comes from getting under a barbell that weighs much more than you is… immense. If you’ve lifted and have loved it, no matter your gender, you probably know the sensation of literal empowerment I’m talking about. For me and a bunch of trans lifting pals, strength sports create a connection with your body that is more about what you can do than what you can look like or what gender people assume you are. For me, lifting has massively decreased my dysphoria, which is another great advantage of lifting for trans folks. Community-Building Topics ranging from anti-racism in queer sports and all-around LGBTQ+ athletics are what you’ll get from the Outsports Podcast — if you want to learn your queer sports history and keep up with the most up-to-date news about trans athletes, tune into this one. LGBTQ+ Lifters, Unite It is presented by Sandi Toksvig, who recalls her own visits to the club, and has interviews with former members. It is sharp, snappy, sassy and sexy – oh, and of course, very sapphic, too. The Gateways Grind, we learn, was a particularly popular dance there where tightly meshed groin action became literally orgasmic. When rain forced the all-female running group's session to a nearby bar one evening, the idea for a female society intertwined with a fitness studio was born.