CINCINNATI — For millions of Ohioans, coming up through youth, high school and college sports was a defining and positive experience of growing up.
It’s where millions learn lessons like leadership, cooperation, confidence and fair play, but it can also be an extremely gendered space.
For any LGBTQ+ athletes, seometimes their experiences can negatively color those memories, even if they loved the sport. Leagues like Hot Mess Sports aim to create new communities and memories around sports as an adult, LGBTQ+ inclusive recreation league.
In 11 cities across the country, including Cincinnati, Hot Mess Sports has been creating a space for LGBTQ athletes for more than ten years.
Alexander Yeazel is the commissioner of Cincinnati’s league, which runs a variety of sports leagues year round. The most popular is kickball, which this season had more than 400 players.
“I was not expecting this many people for this season, but I’m so happy that everyone joined,” he said.
Yeazel said he was attracted to Hot Mess because it was a way to build a community with fellow LGBTQ+ people outside of the bar and club scene, while also getting to explore his competitive side.
“Gay clubs, gay bars those are important, but it also is important now as it’s starting to become more accepted and we’re able to be out in the day together to start creating those spaces,” he said.
A former high school athlete, Yeazel said his experience with sports was mostly positive, but the underlying bigotry and homophobia was hard to ignore in the locker room. His fellow players and even his coaches made it clear they saw being gay and being a football player as mutually exclusive.
“I remember we had just finished our warm-ups we were all hyped up for the game then he sat us down and he preached us a lesson on how if we did not go out and hit hard enough or play fast enough or catch the balls, like, we were basically gay,” Yeazel said.
Brieh Walker, a former collegiate soccer player, said she had a similar experience as she was trying to understand her gender and sexuality.
“I didn’t come out until after college,” she said. “I definitely knew in college, but the collegiate athlete community is such a fishbowl.”
It wasn’t until she joined Hot Mess Sports that Walker felt she had a community that would accept who she was and came out to them as nonbinary. Walker uses she/they pronouns.
“It felt a lot easier coming out and going on that gender journey because I had a community and it felt easier more organic,” they said. “I didn’t feel pressured.”
Currently in its fourth year, Yeazel hopes Hot Mess can provide that space for anyone in Cincinnati looking for a safe place to explore their identity and have some fun along the way.
“Anyone of any gender, any race, any sexuality, anyone is welcome to join our leagues,” he said.
Besides Cincinnati, there are Hot Mess leagues in cities in Kentucky, Wisconsin, Alabama, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Colorado, Georgia and Florida.