The International Gay Rugby Association and Board (IGRAB) recently reviewed two outstanding bids to host the 2010 Gay Rugby World Championship, the Bingham Cup. Bids were presented by the Minneapolis Mayhem RFC of Minnesota and Sin City Irish RFC of Las Vegas, Nevada. The Sin City proposal was unprecedented in that a club who were not IGRAB members (and a majority of whose members are not gay or bisexual) offered to host IGRAB’s premier event. While these aspects of their bid led to much discussion over the nature of IGRAB and even “gay rugby”, it also gave us an opportunity to both reaffirm the inclusive nature of IGRAB rugby and explore opportunities for the future of clubs like Sin City within our organisation.

Ever since the Kings Cross Steelers established the first viable “gay rugby club”, gay and bisexual athletes have followed their example and formed teams where people could play the world’s greatest sport in supportive and inclusive environments. The founding principal of all gay rugby clubs is that a player’s sexual orientation is irrelevant to his or her ability to play rugby or be a teammate or opponent. Because of this, IGRAB member clubs have held firm to the idea that no club founded on providing a place for gay people to play rugby should discriminate against those who are not gay. The IGRAB Executive Committee strongly reaffirms the principal contained in our constitution (and in echoed by such national rugby unions as England’s Rugby Football Union and USA Rugby) that “no individual shall be excluded from participating in IGRAB or rugby on the basis of sexual orientation.”

Rugby is unique in the “gay sports” world in that gay rugby clubs rely on their local and national governing bodies for their ongoing existence. As a gay rugby club takes their first steps to fielding a full team they seek membership in their local area rugby union. These unions provide IGRAB clubs with logistical support, game officials and, importantly, opponents. The majority of an IGRAB club’s opponents each year are not other gay rugby teams but are rather locally based “traditional” clubs who’ve welcomed IGRAB clubs as fully accepted members of the rugby community. In our unique brand of rugby, gay players compete both alongside and against straight players and after each match celebrate the spirit of competition together, all in an environment where sexual orientation has no bearing on the notions of sportsmanship and camaraderie.

This experience is the ultimate expression of inclusiveness, and each time an IGRAB team takes the field against a traditional rugby club, both sides are acting in furtherance of IGRAB’s mission and the sport itself. The Executive Committee believes that gay rugby has never been simply about gay issues. Instead it offers gay athletes a chance to build teams in supportive but competitive environments, and it offers straight athletes an opportunity to make new friends both as teammates and competitors. Differences that once could have divided rugby players in Mark Bingham’s early playing days now serve to strengthen the entire sport of rugby, gay and straight.

There is clearly a place for clubs like the Sin City Irish within the IGRAB family. The specific role and nature of those clubs is something on which IGRAB members will discuss and develop consensus in the coming weeks, but the principals of inclusiveness and teamwork with the larger rugby community will guide that conversation.