Indy residents find community, fun in LGBTQ+ sports leagues

Since community sports non-profit Stonewall Sports established an Indianapolis chapter, LGBTQ+ members and allies have joined the organization – looking for and finding different things.

Annie Nelson joined Stonewall Sports to look for another community outside of work. She found friends that have helped her with her identity as a bisexual woman.

Chase Westby joined to try something new. He’s learned about the diversity in the LGBTQ+ community.

Austin Crawford followed a friend to the kickball league. He found a competitive environment that makes him excited to return each season.

Ernest Hanohano wanted to make deeper connections. He found a place that makes him feel like a kid again.

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Sidney Phillips needed a reason to get out of her house. Since she joined, she has adjusted her work hours to attend games.

"Even if I had to make up hours," she said, "I still made sure I was there.”

‘Making us stronger’

Stonewall Sports is a national organization that coordinates sports leagues for LGBTQ+ community members and allies with more than 20 locations around the U.S. About 1,300 LGBTQ+ community members and allies have participated in the three leagues currently offered by the Indianapolis chapter, which was established in 2020.

Andrew Merkley, president of the board of directors for Stonewall Sports Indianapolis, said the organization provides an athletic medium for a community that does not have many designated safe spaces outside of the bar scene.

“Our community needs healthy competitive outlets where different parts of the community can come together without fear for their safety or fear of their belonging,” Merkley said.

Each of the Stonewall Sports leagues is split into two divisions: competitive, for people who are more aggressive, and recreational, for those who mainly want to socialize. There are Stonewall Sports members that have been playing sports for years and some who never played before joining — some who swing for the fences and some that occasionally run through second base.

Some members sign up with fully-formed teams while others join as free agents or with a few friends and are then placed on a team by Stonewall Sports. The best part about joining as a free agent is getting to meet new people on the team, Merkley said.

“It’s building our community, it’s making us stronger,” Merkley said. “It’s demonstrating that a trans person, gay person of color and a cis white man, we can all participate together on the same team or play competitively against one another.”

The teams are not required to be split up by gender. Nelson said she likes this because it holds everyone to the same competitive level and is inclusive of transgender and nonbinary people.

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Each division of each league competes at the end of the season in a championship tournament. The winners of each division get to pick a philanthropic organization and Stonewall will make a donation to each one. Last kickball season, the winners picked Friends of Frederick Douglass Park and GenderNexus.

‘Not completely straight’

About two years ago, Nelson, 34, got involved in Stonewall Sports.

She joined the organization to play a sport, kickball, and find another community outside of work. Now, Nelson is involved in all three leagues offered by the organization – softball, volleyball and kickball – and has made friends that not only love competing, but are also like-minded and have helped her feel accepted in the LGBTQ+ community.

Nelson has been playing sports, mainly softball, since she was 7 years old. While she found comradery with her childhood teams, Nelson said being teammates with people who have similar issues has helped her with her struggles with her identity.

“Being a part of things like this where you can grow your friend circle and actually are able to talk through things and find that identity,” she said, “it’s a lot different.”

While Nelson loves competing and letting off steam by smacking a ball with a bat, her favorite thing about being involved in Stonewall Sports is hanging out around the fields, sipping alcoholic seltzers and watching, talking to and sometimes taunting the players on and off of her team.

Most days these sideline conversations center around trivia spots and stories about fun nights out. But she also knows she is free to talk about her issues as well. She is free to talk about how church leaders at her college would say that it was okay to be gay but not to act on it.  She is free to discuss how she always knew she was “not completely straight" in a hometown where she felt wrong for being anything but.

‘In high school, you had to force me to play’

Westby, 28, did not like sports growing up.

“In high school, you had to force me to play,” he said. “I just hated them.”

Stonewall Sports, he said, has changed his opinion. He said he loves catching pop flies while playing kickball for his spring team, the Shady Pitches. He enjoys eating snacks and drinking White Claws, and sometimes Jell-O shots, brought by team supporters. Most of all, he loves meeting people in the LGBTQ+ community, especially those who are different from him as a white cisgender gay man.

Westby grew up in a small town in Georgia where he had to conceal who he was.

“In high school and even college, I just had to keep that to myself," he said. "You didn’t want to act a certain way.”

Because he kept his identity a secret for most of his life, he did not know much about gay culture until after he came out to his aunt in 2017 at the Indy Pride Parade. Joining groups such as the Indianapolis Men’s Chorus and Stonewall Sports has introduced him to experiences such as drag performances and important topics such as stigmas in the LGBTQ+ community.

Westby said that through Stonewall Sports he has met people who have taught him about the trans community and how experiences for people of different races and ethnicities have differed in the queer community.

“It gave me a better perspective of how diverse the community is,” he said.

'Makes me want to come back every season'

Crawford, 32, said he likes Stonewall Sports more each season he plays.

Crawford was already involved in the Gay and Lesbian Tennis Alliance, an LGBTQ+ sports group that organizes international tennis tournaments, when one of the other members asked if Crawford would join the Stonewall Sports kickball league.

Crawford thought kickball, a game he played as a kid, would be easy. He quickly discovered it’s much more complicated when people actually want to win. But Crawford said he doesn’t mind because he loves the competitive nature of the league.

Sometimes it can get a little aggressive. During one game, one of his teammates dislocated his shoulder while running to get to a base. But Crawford said that was a freak accident that happened during tournament play.  While players will fall and slide to win, the league is mainly based on the fun, he said.

“It’s just a fun atmosphere to be around,” he said. “It makes me want to come back every season.”

Crawford said he also likes the opportunity to connect with people outside of the gay bar scene. He said it allows people who don’t enjoy bar hopping to find community.

“This gives everyone something to do,” he said. “It brings out the people who want to try something new and it is not stuck to a nightlife scene.”

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‘A no-judgment zone’

Phillips, 31, said she started participating in Stonewall Sports because she wanted to be more active. She said she isn’t super competitive, so it was more about having fun on the field, which is what she found her first season participating in kickball.

“Even when we lost, oh, we still had fun,” Phillips said about her team. “We would joke on the field and everything.”

Phillips said she struggles with wanting to leave the house, especially since she started working from home in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the people she found at Stonewall Sports keep her coming back every week. While she joined to get exercise, she found an organization where she has gained many friendships, one she considers to be lifelong, and a space where she feels carefree.

“It’s like a no-judgment zone,” she said.

The allies are a part of creating this safe space, she said. As a Black woman that is masculine presenting, it is nice to know a group of people that will step to her aide.

“I have a lot of barriers,” Phillips said. “So, it’s nice to have an ally stand up when you need them to.”

‘Feel like a kid again’

Hanohano, 30, said since he joined Stonewall Sports in 2020, he has been able to facilitate connections, make friends he can have deep conversations with and grow as a leader.

Each season Hanohano has played, he has started a new team. He is not typically a captain, but he does take up a leadership role in the team, usually as a mediator and a trainer for the newbies, teaching them how to bump and hit.

While Hanohano could join a team with his best friends from Stonewall Sports, he said he wants to continue expanding his community by finding players to bring into the league. Plus, he knows he will see his closest friends during nights out and their weekend getaways, such as birthday trips to Atlanta.

Hanohano said he is grateful for Stonewall Sports because he has been able to find friends that he maybe would have never met because of their differing backgrounds or occupations.

“I’m friends with these doctors and lawyers and I am just a car salesman,” he said. “And yet we can sit at the same dinner table and talk about just random things.”

Playing sports again and making friends has taken Hanohano back to his childhood, he said.

“The league,” he said, “has definitely helped me feel like a kid again.”

For more information on Stonewall Sports and how to join a league go to https://stonewallindianapolis.leagueapps.com/

Contact IndyStar reporter Madison Smalstig at MSmalstig@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indianapolis residents find community, fun in LGBTQ+ sports leagues