Kathmandu (Pahichan) March 28 – Queer sport has recently been flourishing in Perth. There are now more clubs and groups than ever catering to social and competitive sports and covering a wide range of sports including tennis, swimming, touch rugby, hiking, ten-pin bowling, dancing, rock climbing, field hockey and water polo.<\/p>\n
Up until recently though, it has often been a challenge to find out what\u2019s available for sporty members of the LGBT community. That couldn\u2019t have been more true with OUTinPerth\u2019s short hiatus last year which left members of the community without a clear means of finding queer-friendly clubs, associations and groups.<\/p>\n
This situation inspired local gay sportsman Gary Namestnik to start TeamPerth.info<\/a>, a website with the goal of \u201cpromoting queer sporting and recreation in WA\u201d. Launched in October 2016, the website is well on the way to becoming the hub for queer sport and recreation in WA with a growing list of clubs and groups.<\/p>\n Along with the website there is also a Facebook page, around which Gary hopes to build a vibrant community and inspire the founding of even more clubs.<\/p>\n Team Perth also serves as a platform for celebrating the contributions and successes of our queer sportspeople.\u00a0A perfect example of this is Simon Thuijs from the Perth Pythons Hockey Club<\/a>, who was recently recognised by Out for Australia<\/a> as an LGBTIQ Role Model of the Year for his efforts in founding the Pythons Hockey club, as well as all his work creating the True Colours Project in 2014 to increase LGBTIQ+ visibility.<\/p>\n Gary was also instrumental in the founding of WA\u2019s newest LGBT sports team, the White Pointers water polo team. The club has training hard and has been invited by the Brisbane Tritons water polo team to compete in a tournament in July against teams from the Eastern States.<\/p>\n If you are interested in joining any of the teams mentioned in this article then head on over to teamperth.info<\/a>\u00a0and get on board. If you can\u2019t find what you want, then why not start your own club?<\/strong><\/p>\n