Particularly with what recently happened to Brittney Griner, I cannot imagine more than a handful of Americans getting on a plane headed to Hong Kong for these Games.
State Department currently recommends citizens avoid traveling to Hong Kong - That is not expected to change anytime soon. Hong Kong was unfortunately a poor choice to host these Games, and it’s untenable today. Now the realities of the situation have set in. If that model fails in multiple sports, it will become more than a small headache for the FGG. The Gay Games rely in part on international governing bodies organizing world championships at the Gay Games. In response, the IGLFA last year moved its championships to Sydney and Washington DC, a relationship now badly damaged. Yet the writing was on the wall for Hong Kong when organizers told the International Gay and Lesbian Football Association they couldn’t host their world championships in conjunction with the Games - something they had done for decades. Recently the founder of the event, Dennis Philipse, stepped down, further complicating its future. The staff and volunteers have spent countless hours trying to bring an LGBTQ event to a city that has never hosted anything like it. I feel badly for the organizers in Hong Kong, who have approached this with optimism and enthusiasm. Given what happened in 2017 with the Outgames - athletes arriving from around the world to find there is no event - the Gay Games will have to make some very serious decisions in the coming weeks and months that could alter the future of the event. This latest move - claiming they will host the Games in two different cities - is the latest step before the Hong Kong Games are either canceled all together or reduced to an event that is unrecognizable as the Gay Games. They created a back-up plan that included delaying the Games until 2023 (done) and possibly moving the Games all-together. Various athletes - and even voting members of the Federation of Gay Games - have reached out to me over the last few years to anonymously levy their concerns. There have been calls almost since Hong Kong was named as the host to move the Games, as civil unrest developed in Hong Kong.
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How can you tell there are problems? Less than two years out, registration for the event is still not open. Now hosting the event in two different cities is risky for an event already facing increasing competition.įor much of the last few years, the Gay Games has watched as the realities of selecting Hong Kong as a host city have grown: the increasing encroachment of Chinese authoritarian rule in Hong Kong, a lack of interest amongst athletes in Hong Kong as a host city, human-rights issues in China, the COVID-19 pandemic, and more. While the Gay Games have had lofty goals of bringing the world to China to celebrate the LGBTQ community, the reality is that this is not going to happen. The Federation of Gay Games has announced it will split its quadrennial event next year, hosting two different events in two different cities: Hong Kong and Guadalajara, Mexico.