Speakers
Description
Queer, non-binary, and trans people face a number of barriers in accessing health services and opportunities, including engaging in fitness or exercise. While there is some important academic work on organized sport for both sexual and gender diverse minorities, there is a dearth of literature that addresses the experiences of queer and trans people who are not competitive athletes or interested in organized sport, but who want to be engaged in fitness, physical activity and exercise. This presentation shares insights from a participatory action research project that involved 12 queer and trans participants in a 10-week group fitness class held in a dedicated queer gym in the local community of the first author. Drawing on queer theorist Michael Warner’s idea of counterpublics and feminist theorist Sara Ahmed’s critique of inclusion, this paper frames participants’ desires for dedicated queer and trans spaces that think otherwise about hegemonic calls for ‘inclusion’. In so doing, this presentation grapples with questions raised by this year’s Congress’s call for papers with respect to social change in local communities where ‘needs, wants, and expectations’ are taken seriously.
