Sometimes an idea for a research project comes from your lab, and sometimes it comes from an alumna.

Enter “Bolt” (she/they), who runs the Windsor Rainbow Sports Club and is a UWindsor psychology grad. When one of her players mentioned psychology professor Dana Ménard’s research, she was enthusiastic about the possibility of collaborating on a project.

Dr. Ménard says it was a natural fit.

“My research group right now is 100 per cent composed of sexual and gender minority group members, so some of the research directions have sort of naturally evolved to reflect their frustrations with the existing research,” she says. “Every time we have a question about ‘what do we know about the experience of trans people’ or ‘how such-and-such a thing effects gay people’ the data just isn’t there. The research hasn’t been done, and that's been sort of endlessly frustrating to my group.”

She agreed to launch a study of the impact of participation on members of recreational sports leagues for LGBTQ+ individuals. The project has received a $25,000 SSHRC Partnership Engage Grant and a $20,000 WE-Spark Igniting Discovery Grant.

Bolt says she was looking for research data to back up her grant proposals for the club.

“When that one player came to us and thought that it was a good idea to partner, immediately I thought, ‘oh man, I can get my questions answered,’” says Bolt.

After meeting with Bolt, Ménard sought out as a collaborator human kinetics professor Sarah Woodruff, whose area of expertise is health behaviours of individuals.

“Less than half of the Canadian population are active enough. Certainly, marginalized communities have even lower rates of participation because of previous experiences, whether it’s while growing up or having a bad experience early on,” says Dr. Woodruff. “So they tend to think physical activity isn’t for them. However, physical activity is one of the best things we can do for ourselves in terms of mental health and being a risk factor for many of the chronic diseases later in life. So I would say to anybody, but particularly marginalized communities, staying active as an adult is important.”

The researchers have completed a number of interviews with LGBTQ+ people and organizations and next plans to interview LGBTQ+ people in non-LGBTQ+ specific recreational sports organizations.

Bolt says her experiences point up the difference.

“I got to the end of three seasons in some sports leagues and still didn’t know half my teammates names,” she says. “And those leagues are very much about playing the sport. It’s about showing up. You play the sport, you maybe chat here and there, and then you leave.

“Any queer league that I’ve played in, any kind of LGBTQ alternative league, there’s always this deeper sense of social fun that occurs. And that was something really missing in my life.”

Ménard calls the project timely.

“Right now LGBTQ rights are under attack around the world,” she says. “These sports clubs are a refuge for people to take a break from that outside world and be with people who understand and have fun — and be active.”

Once this project is completed, the team plans to use the data to write an even bigger grant that would bring Ontario LGBTQ+ recreational sports leagues together to share information and work for advocacy.

“Our community has so many wounds around sport that if we start to change people’s relationship to movement, we can start to heal those wounds,” says Bolt. “We can start to change their relationships, hopefully to themselves. I want the research to show me the way.”

Interested in taking part in this study? Contact recsports@uwindsor.ca.