Written by:
Laura Carpenter
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this Issue of Curve:
Vol. 17#2
Over 10,000 athletes from 111 countries competed in the inaugural World Outgames in Montreal last summer. In between waving to strangers on the Metro and showing off her gold medals from track, I had a chance to catch up with some of the world’s finest lesbian athletes.
Kerstin Stender, water polo
Hometown: Perth, Australia
Kerstin Stender, 40, tucked her silver hair under her cap, treaded water in the warm-up area and slammed the yellow ball into the net. The only way we knew she was a woman was her bathing suit straps; the rest of the team wore tiny Speedos with Sydney Stingers written across their bums.
A water polo player since she was a teenager, Stender played goalie and in the field for an Australian men’s team at the Gay Games in Chicago and the Outgames. “The guys in Chicago played nasty,” she said. “They would hold you down, grab your wrist and pull you under.” Stender admitted that she prefers playing with women, because they are more fair.
“She had big bruises by the end of the week,” added Deb Dearnley, Stender’s partner. The couple celebrated their four-year anniversary in Niagara Falls between games.
“Can’t break a leg or anything (in water polo),” Stender conceded, “just a few bruises, that’s it.”
The Sydney Stingers placed fourth, but the games meant more than rank. “I think the main thing I got out of the games was the feeling of being in the majority for once,” Stender concluded. “There was no staring and hassles. Guess this must be how straight people feel all the time.”
Joschi Schweikert and Steffi Ulbich, tennis
Hometown: Berlin, Germany
Joschi Schweikert, 42, and Steffi Ulbich, 29, are partners on and off the court. They met playing tennis and have been together for four years. “We do not notice age (difference) because we do the same things,” said Schweikert, an internist who has been out 15 years. Schweikert has been playing tennis competitively for 30 years, and Ulbich for 22 years. They also play golf and enjoy other outdoor activities together. Berlin “is a big city; we can be free,” said Ulbich, who works for a travel agency.
Schweikert attended the Gay Games in New York, Amsterdam and Syndey, but the couple chose the Outgames because they don’t like to go the USA. “Because of politics,” Ulbich explained. “You have to answer questions about AIDS. I don’t like that,” Schweikert continued.
In record heat and humidity that made air-conditioned lobbies feel like paradise, the couple won their first two doubles matches and lost the third, which was the final for the Women’s Open A/B Doubles division. Schweikert and Ulbich played singles in the open women’s division and ended up being pitted against each other.
They also played together in the Eurogames, the European version of the Outgames. The first North America Outgames will be in April in Calgary; for more information, see www.calgary2007.com.
Andrea Lowgren, ballroom dancing
Hometown: Santa Cruz, California
One event you will be hard-pressed to find anywhere else is same-sex ballroom dancing. Andrea Lowgren, 29, and Andreanna Riley won the bronze medal for Women’s C Class Standard. Lowgren wore black pants, a vest and cuff links, what she called her “penguin outfit,” while Riley wore a pale blue, “big, flowy” dress. “We chose not to be twins because I’m 6 feet and she’s 5??”,” Lowgren said.
Lowgren enjoyed watching and meeting talented dancers. “It’s such a small population that I delight in finding others who are just as hooked on ballroom dance. … What I loved about the Outgames in general was seeing so many gay people from around the world in one place. It’s one thing to cognitively know that we are everywhere, but it is another thing to experience our variety and vibrancy.”
Her ballroom community back in Santa Cruz, and most places in the U.S., is not as welcoming. “Any competition that allowed us to dance could be sanctioned,” she said. “Men will cut in if two women are dancing together. They don’t believe women can lead.”
Racquel Bonner, body building
Hometown: Columbus, Ohio
Racquel Bonner, 35, felt the first World Outgames would be a great place to have her world debut. She had already won body-building competitions in Ohio and was the NPC Natural Ohio Women Overall Champion.
The personal trainer thought the Outgames would be her last competition. Body building is tough, and she had been competing for five years, but after she won silvers in the Women’s Under 45 and the Women’s Heavyweight divisions, she said she will stay in shape and might consider Copenhagen in 2009.
Bonner rubbed baby oil over her body to make her muscles shiny and distinct, as if we had anything else to stare at once she shimmied into that skimpy red bikini. The 60-second routine with music (the most popular being “Don’t Cha” by the Pussycat Dolls) was Bonner’s favorite part of the competition. “The routine is where you can show your personality,” she said, flashing her winning smile.
“The experience of the Outgames was an overwhelming feeling of unity,” she said. “It was a heart-warming experience.”
Another body builder, Nancy Brigham, 49, of San Francisco, dedicated her gold-medal-winning performance to her brother that died of AIDS. The positive feedback she received “made every repetition, mile of cardio and egg white worth it!” she said.
Joan Darrah, 10-kilometer road race, and Lynne Kennedy, golf
Hometown: Alexandria, Va.
For over ten years, Joan Darrah, 55, and her partner Lynne Kennedy, 65, lived two lives. “My life at work” was separate from home, Darrah said. “I couldn’t tell anyone I was gay. We didn’t socialize.” Darrah was a U.S. Navy captain and an intelligence officer. “Lynne graciously put up with my having to live under ’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ ”
On Sept. 11, 2001, not long after Darrah left a meeting at the Pentagon, the terrorist attacks killed seven of her co-workers. She realized that if she had died, Kennedy would have been the last to know because nobody knew about her. Darrah retired in 2002 after almost 30 years of service.
The couple, who have been together 15 years, chose the Outgames because Canada is one of 25 countries that let gays serve openly. “I go from what a good cause, to what century is this?” Darrah said. There are over 1 million estimated gay veterans. “Sometimes I’m overcome with anger. … You can do almost anything but if you feel like you’re the only one it’s really hard.”
They didn’t feel alone at the Outgames, where Darrah won her age group in the 10-kilometer road race and Kennedy played golf on a course that lost several trees in a storm the night before the tournament. An ex-nun, Kennedy knew she was gay “when I first had an affair with a woman. I was in the convent, and it was my first time with anyone.”
By the numbers:
10,428 number of participants in sports events
34% women
18 age of youngest participant
82 age of oldest participant
111 countries represented; origin of participants: 39% Canada, 19% USA, 7 % Germany, 6% Netherlands, 6% Australia, 5% United Kingdom, 3% France, 15% Other
35 different sport disciplines
18,599 participants as conference delegates, athletes, volunteers or participants in the cultural program
Watch for the next World Outgames in 2009, in Copenhagen, and the first North American Outgames in 2007, in Calgary, Alberta
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