Host Demetra Giannakopoulos interviews Rowen D’Souza, CEO and President of GLTA, which is the international LGBTIQA+ tennis organisation.  Rowen is also the Founder of the Glam Slam, a tennis tournament celebrating the LGBTIQ community at the Australian Open. Rowen explains why the GLTA is important for queer participation in tennis and how it continues to make it inclusive for women and all genders in our community.

TRANSCRIPT

Uptempo dance song under a voiceover: Anyone for tennis? You’re with Demetra Giannakopoulos on Hit Me Up on JOY 94.9.

Host Demetra Giannakopoulos (DG): Our special guest today is Rowen D’Souza, who is the CEO and president of the GLTA, which is a worldwide LGBTIQA+ tennis organization. And Rowen is also the founder of the Glam Slam, which is played at the Australian Open each year. Rowen, welcome to Hit Me Up.

Guest Rowen D’Souza (RD): Oh, it’s great to be here. Thank you for hitting me up.

DG: (laughter) Any time. Now Rowen tell us about the GLTA. What do they do? Who are they?

RD: So the GLTA is a worldwide organization made up of nearly 100 LGBTQIA+ run tennis clubs around the world. And our function and our rationale is to organize events for LGBTIQA+ community around the world to play tennis. So it’s a very simple thing that brings people together using the glue of tennis, but creates social networks and people get to make friends, and people get to experience the joy of a sport in an environment that is tailored to our community.

So the rainbow community plays sport just like everyone else, and it’s really nice that we give them that opportunity to do so. Whether it be in countries where it’s very much legal and very much accepted, or even countries where it’s maybe a little bit hidden still, or it’s new or it’s different. The GLTA aims to bring people together through tennis.

DG: Tennis or sport is a competitive endeavor and I like to compete, but also the thing I love and I’m, I’m, I’m talking about tennis because that’s my sport. But I’m sure it’s the same for every other sport that the community of the sport whether you’re in a club or you turn up in a tournament.

How does that fit in with the GLTA? And is that something that is part and parcel of the GLTA, or do you have to, you know, constantly have a conversation about that with people who turn up for the tournament?

RD: The clubs actually form the voting members of the GLTA. So there are like a there are foundation and what it what was there were actually clubs, LGBTI people playing tennis and they organize themselves into clubs and then they’ve organized themselves further. The beautiful thing about GLTA events is no matter where you go in the world with one of the events that we sanction, there’s going to be a level of consistency.

We have a, we have a ranking system. We have a set of rules and bylaws. We have a set of norms that we have. So, you know, Iif you travel to America, if you travel to Japan, having a new tournament in Japan in March, if you travel to Majorca, if you travel to Oslo, if you travel to these places, you as an LGBTI person, if you are by yourself, you can actually know you’re going to find community because you have that foundation of the tournament.

So the tennis is the thing that grounds us and the clubs have started, you know, organizing these amazing events around the world. And then other, you know, smaller groups organize that as well. But I think it’s something that it’s it’s about connecting us all up. It’s creating a network that we can find a safe space wherever we go.

DG: How does it work? Is it like search a website to find like when tournaments are on?

RD: So I website, the GLTA.net has a list of all our tournaments, plus all the information about new events, existing events. You know it’s a it’s a it’s a website where we promote, the efforts of clubs around the world. Plus we have the tournament software where you can enter the the tournament itself. And it’s a great way.

And I know people watch this website very closely because anytime there’s a change, you know, we get messages and all this is exciting. [Okay.] Tell me more about this. So I know that there is a real hunger for, opportunities out there in our community. When we look at the Glam Slam, which we just opened a couple of weeks ago, we had over 200 players in the first two minutes entering our event.

We have more women than ever who have entered on the day of entry, and most of our events were full in 90 seconds. So what this says to me is that our community is really keen not just to go to pride with flags  you know, those celebrations are but also participate and also compete in tennis. So, you know, it’s giving us this added element for engagement for our community, which is amazing, which is the thing that inspires me the most.

DG: Something that, you know, I really want to explore with, Hit Me Up is the community of tennis around the world, in the LGBTIQA+ community. And it’s like, you know, it’s communities within communities, isn’t it? And does the GLTA, interact with country bodies that, you know, I mean, beyond just the LGBTIQA community and what are those interactions like?

RD: Well, one of the main things that the GLTA really needs to do as an overall organization is to actually engage with the community on a wider scale. So our clubs don’t necessarily do that, particularly in countries where it’s still illegal, where, you know, there are countries where, it’s jailable and worse to be a part of our community.

But the GLTA overall is about engaging with the community because, I mean, were you there last year, you and I watched that. We at the event where we watched the wheelchair tennis? [YES] Was that you? That’s you know, that’s a great example about how diversity changes tennis.

DG: But the Australian Open is, you know, it’s so wonderful. It has, wheelchair tennis. And I think blind tennis as well, which is, super.

RD: So I’m going to use this example. People in wheelchairs were very much excluded from society for a whole range of reasons. Then when we came out to play tennis, people were playing tennis. And the game is developed to such a level that now when we watch, we think, this is amazing. I didn’t realize that the people in wheelchairs could play tennis.

Now, when you watch the wheelchair game, it’s a modified version of tennis, but it’s awesome. Absolutely awesome. So it gives you a different view of this community. And that’s the same thing with that community as well. A lot of people have a very fixed view of our community. But then, you know, when they see us play tennis, when they see us, engage in all sorts of elements of life.

It’s another way in which we grow our community. We foster what our community should be. We don’t need more division. We don’t need more people in little pockets and hiding away what we need is we need everyone to interact with each other and celebrate each other. And that’s what we’re trying to do, with tennis and certainly the national bodies.

Tennis Australia is a little bit ahead of the other bodies. Not because, I think it’s just because – the will is there and we get access at the Australian Open like it’s the only event, in the world where you play a tournament at a, at a Grand Slam and, you know, we get courts at a Grand Slam. So, you know, there are allocated courts for us and our community and they’re not easy to get.

So the international organizations, we have to engage with them. And the ones who, see our value will be including us because that’s part of community. We are part of community. You can you can’t deny that.

DG: Now let’s talk about, inclusive of all genders, because tennis is very gendered sport. But I say that with a qualification that we have had mixed doubles since the beginning of tennis, which has always been an opportunity of all of us playing together, literally. Yeah.

RD: Yeah, absolutely.

DG: How does the GLTA or your experience of the tournament set form part of the GLTA tour embrace gender diversity in the events and how is that dealt with?

RD: Well, one thing, before I answer that with tennis, I always remind people yes to mixed doubles. Absolutely. Also, women actually having, playing, tennis is it goes back a long, long way as well, like AFL(W) only started a few years ago. Also, we do have experience with, trans inclusion at tennis. So there was a player in the 70s who was, and I’m using this example as an inclusive example. There was a player called Renee Richards who, you know, went to the courts and was allowed to play as a trans woman in at the US open. And played a number of times, in fact tennis, has had this experience tennis is it’s one of those sports with excellent examples of inclusion and it’s actually fantastic what we do.

Sport is very gendered because that’s how it was set up. Organizations such as the GLTA pushing to make it less gendered or to find better nuances and to find better ways of actually, involving people who can play, who are, gender diverse. So in the GLTA, of course, we started off with men’s and women’s divisions as well. And the women’s divisions are always, have always unfortunately been smaller because participation of women does lag behind the participation of men. So what we decided to do, in the last couple of years, is actually change the name of our men’s division. We get rid of the men’s divisions and what we’ve called that is all gender. So no matter what gender you are, you can play in these divisions.

So everyone can play in the division. Now because women are underrepresented in sport. We felt it was very important that we that we have a space for women to play, and we w