Athlete Ally: Developing an Online Curriculum on LGTBQ Issues in Sports

To combat homophobia and transphobia in sports, and to educate more athletes, coaches, and administrators, Athlete Ally is developing a unique online training curriculum that will launch before the end of 2018. This training will be free and open to everyone who wants to take it to become more educated on LGBTQ issues in sports.

The Problem

Research shows that LGBTQ athletes drop out of sports at a rate dramatically higher than their heterosexual peers, or avoid sports altogether. The impact is devastating. It’s in part why we don’t have more visible LGBTQ athletes playing professional sports; why acclaimed and successful “out” coaches often are “let go”; why transgender athletes have to fight just to play the sport they love; and why the media jumps at the opportunity to speculate about an athletic figure’s sexual orientation. Sport remains a challenging place to navigate as an LGBTQ person at any stage of life, and at any level of sport.

Athletic departments and the sports community must commit to educating allies and protecting LGBTQ people – carving out a space in sports culture for everyone to thrive without fear of discrimination, harassment or violence. Athlete Ally’s online training aims to provide the necessary resources to achieve a world where all athletes are respected and protected in sport.

The Solution

Athlete Ally’s online training and curriculum seeks to address anti-LGBTQ discrimination in sport by providing education to those who need it, without letting geography be a barrier. We believe that everyone should have equal access, opportunity and experience in sport, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Athlete Ally is looking to amplify our in-person trainings to athletic departments and other sporting institutions by taking these trainings online. The goal here is to reach students, coaches and administrators all over the country, so that geography is no longer a barrier to LGBTQ training. Perhaps most importantly, for the first time, we’ll be able to reach students, coaches and administrators in rural areas – including parts of the Intermountain West region – where often these trainings are most needed. This online curriculum, while targeting K-12 and college athletics, is also open and available to everyone. It is also intentionally designed to cross across sports, so that no matter what you play or coach, it applies to you.

Athlete Ally has developed the overview of an Athlete Ally online training curriculum to be released in 2018. We’ve developed four separate “expertise tracks,” based on six years of Athlete Ally trainings all over the country and at various schools and universities. These categories range from LGBTQ education to intersectional allyship to proactive policies. We’re in the process of writing the scripts for these 20 workshops and have identified technology that allows us to embed quizzes, polls, and checkpoints into video to make a comprehensive, online curriculum for coaches, students, and administrators looking for training and resources on LGBTQ inclusion in sports. Athlete Ally is excited about this development, as it will eliminate physical and financial barriers to coaches, students and administrators receiving trainings. It will be a very accessible and valuable resource to...