Queer City Sports provides a welcoming space for Baltimore's LGBTQ+ community
Queer City Sports offers Baltimore's LGBTQ+ community a space to play sports, have fun and meet people.
It was founded in the city in 2018 and started with a softball league before expanding to multiple sports year-round – including volleyball, kickball, bowling, pickleball, football, bocce and more.
Right now, registration is open for the summer kickball league, which kicks off in July, and the newest league, cornhole, just got started on Tuesday evenings at Union Craft Brewery.
Queer City Sports (QCS) is different from other adult sports leagues. You can't register a whole group of friends as one team when signing up for a league; instead, QCS requires individuals and small groups of friends to be added to all teams.
Founder Rebecca Winslow says this is meant to get everyone mixing, mingling and making new connections in a safe space, which is why she founded the organization. At the time, queer spaces were disappearing – like Club Hippo, which closed in the Fall of 2015. It had served the LGBTQ+ community in Mount Vernon since the 1970s.
"We needed another way to connect, and I was really looking for something that wasn't centered around alcohol that was also active, where you could form lasting relationships, and having been an athlete my whole life, sports was like the natural answer for me," said Winslow.
Volleyball in Hampden
The volleyball league is in the middle of its season now. Teams meet on Sundays at Roosevelt Park in Baltimore's Hampden neighborhood, where both longtime players and newcomers are serving up points.
Jace Graham just joined Queer City Sports this season with some friends to play volleyball.
"It's really good so far," said Graham. "Everyone seems really nice. Met a lot of people that I don't know. Met some people that I've seen in other leagues."
Graham recognizes the importance of having safe spaces like this for the queer community.
"I'm usually more concerned about my friends, said Graham. "Like I'm a pretty big person so…I don't really ever feel unsafe a lot, but I do have a lot of friends that are smaller, that are female, that are trans… where they might not feel as accepted in other spaces and so I'm happy to be part of a space where I know that my friends can come and be safe and have fun."
Jordan Differding has been involved with QCS for the last two years and started with softball, moved to pickleball and is now playing volleyball. He grew up playing sports, but this team is different.
"Being gay in sports has, it's been kind of frowned upon, initially… Like if I am playing volleyball and I score, like now, I can do my little shimmy and like I couldn't do that in high school to really show my, show my true self type of thing," said Differding.
Differding's teammate, AJ Ayrault, has been a part of Queer City Sports since the first season and also grew up playing sports.
"You can be an excellent athlete, and you can also be queer, right? And I grew up in the 90s, where that was not true," said Ayrault. "You were one or the other, right? So much so that if you were an excellent athlete, you weren't telling anybody that you were gay, right? Or if you were gay, maybe you weren't going into athletics even if you had natural gifts because it wasn't safe, so yeah, this for me is about a lot more than six weeks of volleyball."
Everyone is welcome
Anyone can join a QCS league, and it's open to all skill levels.
"We are all about having fun and making friends," said Winslow. "Even if you've never played a sport before, we do a one-on-one clinic where we break it down for you, teach you the rules, show you the basics of the game so you can come in and have a good time."
Jack Mirabella has been a part of QCS for seven years and plays in numerous leagues, including volleyball, football and kickball.
"It sort of makes you feel like a kid again," Mirabella. "I played really intense soccer all through college, and it's really fun to sort of get back to just being playful with my friends and just having a good time with sports, so it's just sort of reminiscing of being a kid again."
Mirabella is transgender and moved to Baltimore in 2012. Mirabella has played in a lot of other coed leagues that weren't queer-focused.
"Unfortunately, some of the other leagues have rules that are based around gender, where you have to have a certain number of one gender, a certain number of another on the field at a given time, and what I like about here is that anyone can play anywhere at any time," said Mirabella. "You're not restricted based on your identity, so it's very freeing, and it's very welcoming."
Queer City Sports also has leagues in Seattle and Tacoma, WA, Portland, OR and is preparing to launch its Washington, D.C. chapter in 2027.
"It's been an incredible community to be a part of and to watch it grow," said Winslow. "I would say the part that really gets me, that fills my heart, is seeing people walk in as strangers and then the next thing I know their entire social circle is built out of their Queer City Sports teammates and people that they've met."