Gatekeeping in Sports: Have you experienced it? What to do?
I love just passing the Frisbee in general and have always thought that ultimate seemed like a cool sport. Two, I was forced to play sports as a kid and hated them and was looking forward to the chance to enjoy them in a no pressure context as an adult. And I'm wondering if I'm going to encounter this everywhere no matter which sport I pick. And one thing I forgot to mention is that this is like a pickup group, so it's intended to be for all skill levels
J.L. Beasley
@Her_Sisu · 4:34
And I was like, no, this is just for fun. No one is winning a cash prize or any kind of big gift. It's for fun. And so what I said to the group, I said, hey, we are here to have fun and play. Now somebody's going to let me sit at the table and play. And they were like, okay, we hear you, short stuff. We hear you. All right, all right
phil spade
@Phil · 3:49
But having the ability or the option to do that, I think that's where you need to look in some of the adult leagues and whether that's pickleball, badminton, volleyball, softball. There's a lot of sports that actually have those multiple divisions within their league trying to capture people of like mindset and put them together. And I think you'll have a much better time when you can actually get together with people of a like mindset and like approach to a sports
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
But if you were to put any of them in a park setting, a public park for just a simple kick around league, they would get chosen last if you didn't know that they were skilled athletes. Right. And it's sad that that's where we are. I've also experienced other forms of gatekeeping, and I have certainly gatekeeped before when it comes to soccer, especially the rise in popularity these days, a lot of people just, like, try to strike up soccer conversations with me
So that may be the answer I'm looking for in terms of finding a less competitive, more easy going sort of group of people to play with. So thank you for shedding light on that. Hey, Taylor, good to speak to you again too. Hope all as well. I'm sorry to hear that you experienced this growing up, being excluded from sports by others based on your weight, even though you were competitive and wanted to play