The European Gay and Lesbian Sport Federation (EGLSF) is a sporting body for homosexuals in Europe. It was founded by West German and Dutch LGBT sport clubs in 1989 after being inspired by the first Gay Games in San Francisco, United States. Its headquarters are in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Today, EGLSF has more than a hundred LGBT sport clubs from all over Europe as members, representing more than 20.000 European athletes.
Since 1992, the EGLSF celebrates a European gay sport event once a year: the EuroGames, the European Gay & Lesbian Championships. There are two levels of EuroGames: large-scale EuroGames which are held every 4 years and small-scale EuroGames which are held annually.
For the large scale EuroGames no limitations apply. Small-scale EuroGames are limited to a maximum of 3,000 participants in order to enable small clubs to bid for, and host, the EuroGames.
Besides offering a sport event to the gay and lesbian sports community, the EGLSF wishes to promote the following goals:
- fight against discrimination in sport on grounds of sexual preference
- stimulate integration in sport and emancipation of lesbians and gays
- enable and support the coming out of gay and lesbian sports men and women
- support the founding of new gay, lesbian, straight and mixed groups