ABSTRACT
Statistical data on participation in sports reveal differences related to personal characteristics and background factors, such as age, education and ethnicity. Less is known, however, about possible relationships between participation in sports and sexual preferences. Although qualitative research has shown that especially homosexual men experience barriers that deter them from participating in (organized) sports, it is not known to what extent lesbian women and gay men participate in sport in general, specifi c types of sport or particular sport organizations. Like in most European countries, sport participation studies in the Netherlands use broad defi nitions of sports, referring to many different kind of recreational or professional activities that can be characterized by game aspects, aimed at improving (motor) skills and performance, physical fi tness and/or competition. This means that apart from the traditional (Anglo Saxon) competitive sports like football, tennis and track and fi eld, also recreational swimming, tour cycling, fi tness and ‘mental-sports’ like chess and bridge belong to the ‘sports family’ and may be included in sport participation questionnaires (DiopterJanssens and Van Bottenburg BV 2000; Van der Meulen 2003). Nowadays sport participants are active in all kinds of settings: they are participating alone, in informal groups, in sports clubs, in school or local government-based organized settings or in commercial institutions like fi tness centres. Nonetheless, mainstream sport in the Netherlands is still associated with competitive physical sports, organized in voluntarily organized club contexts. It has been documented that the broadened defi nition of sport and the increasing organizational possibilities have increased participation in sport by (formerly) underrepresented social groups like women and the elderly, but also that specifi c sports are practised by particular social groups (e.g. Breedveld 2003; Elling and Knoppers 2005). Possibly, also gay men and lesbian women are over-and underrepresented in particular areas of the heterogeneous sport reality.
