The Brief

There’s a frenzy of madness and tangled limbs on the basketball court until someone shoots for a goal. Then it’s all eyes on the ball as everyone holds their breath, watching its graceful airborne arc in anticipation.

But this time, the ball narrowly misses and bounces off the rim, sending a dozen queer ballers scurrying to the opposite end of the court to play offense and defense. The heat is picking up on the courts of Highland Park Recreation Center.

Here, a group of queer basketball players in Northeast L.A., aptly named WNBGAY, meet up twice a week for a pickup basketball game. WNBGAY isn’t the only queer recreational sports group in Los Angeles — there are at least a dozen more scattered throughout the region — ranging from a dozen to a hundred attendees a week. Spaces like WNBGAY have become safe gatherings for gay men, lesbians, trans, non-binary and queer people alike to meet up and play sports, make friends and find community.

Cass Spillman, who runs an event staffing agency, says WNBGAY started two years ago informally as a group chat on Instagram amongst friends who wanted to play ball, until the desire for a queer space for ballers grew into something official. Spillman started helping to organize set locations and times for regular meetups.

Now they have official WNBGAY merch they use to raise money for equipment they need, like basketballs and more.

The most exciting part has been seeing real WNBA players sport their attire while playing.

“[There’s] joy that comes across my face when I just see somebody wearing WNBGAY merch in the wild,” Spillman says. “Because even though I don't know that person, they're repping us [and] they're proud of what we're doing here.”

Dream Team Society

Queer recreational sports groups like WNBGAY and Dyke Soccer LA reflect the large sapphic fanbase that supports many of the women’s professional leagues like the Women’s National Basketball Association and the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team.

But groups are carving out new spaces within other sports that aren’t typically friendly to queer and trans people.

Surfing, a sport often associated with a laidback counter-culture, can often be exclusionary to newcomers with unspoken rules around locals who claim certain beaches. When the World Surf League moved to include transgender people in competitions, famous surfers like Bethany Hamilton spoke up to boycott the WSL.

But Dream Team Society has been pushing to normalize queer bodies in the ocean. Freelance photographer and videographer Shelly Simon organizes monthly meetups for Dream Team Society. Back in March, they hosted an event at the beach for Trans Day of Visibility with over 100 attendees. More recently, Simon collaborated with San Diego Gay Surf to celebrate the end of Pride Month with a bonfire at Ocean Beach.

Members of San Diego Gay Surf and Dream Team society celebrate a bonfire with hamburgers and pets before heading out to the waves.

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For Sergio Morales, who founded San Diego Gay Surf a year and a half ago, the effort started with simply reposting photos to connect with other queer and gay surfers. But Morales quickly wanted to have in-person meetups at the beach.

“There isn't a space for us out there. There's no representation for the queer community in surfing and most of the sports,” says Morales. “So why not start a space where we can bring the local community together and just build that?”

Queer recreational groups aren’t just for those who identify as LGBTQ. Allies of the spaces are similarly drawn to the welcoming atmosphere of inclusivity that allows them to show up fully as themselves. Like Valeria Diaz, who doesn’t identify as queer but comes from a racially mixed background. In other spaces, it feels like her heritages clash, but as a member of San Diego Gay Surf, she’s found acceptance beyond the binaries of identity.

Valeria Diaz (right) and Noah Fox (left), members of San Diego Gay Surf, practice their headstands on the grass.

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“There's a lot of people who work within boxes. Like you have to be Caucasian or you have to be Hispanic,” Diaz says. “This group really just encompasses the idea of love for all, no matter if you're gay, straight … we're all humans, and I think that's why I keep coming back to this group, because our values align.”

Queer Run Club

New queer recreational sports groups like Queer Run Club formed last August out of the need for a connection from the isolation experienced during the pandemic. From Silver Lake to Long Beach to Culver City, Jessi Baron and DJ Ki have made it their mandate to rotate their weekly runs throughout Los Angeles to make their events accessible throughout the county.

Members of the Queer Run Club run at Los Angeles Historic State Park on a Monday evening in June.

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Baron and Ki have made it their goal to reach a diverse range of queer runners, not just geographically, but across identities. They say it's important to note that Queer Run Club was started by two queer people of color.

“That was like an intentional move on our part to let people know, like, this isn't just going to be a white-only space,” says Ki. They point out that there are few sapphic bars beyond the newly established Honey’s at Star Love and Ruby Fruit. “This isn't only going to be like a gay man's space. It's for everyone. I feel like the turnout is so diverse as well. Not just ethnic and racial but like age groups.”

WeHo Dodgeball

One neighborhood is home to some of the most active queer sports groups. The West Hollywood Recreation Center is home to multiple queer sports that utilize its facilities. West Hollywood Aquatics brings together local swimmers and water polo players who compete internationally.

But WeHo Dodgeball’s Tuesday and Thursday games at the recreational center bring the friendly competition to another level. At any time during their evening tournaments, four games are happening simultaneously, with referees managing the organized chaos as people hurtle balls to knock the opposing team out of play.

Competing teams rush to grab dodgeballs after the referee’s whistle signals the start of a new match.

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For some, the connections forged in the heat of the sport go beyond friendly competition. It’s helped people find queer friends, partners and even chosen families. MJ Rios works as a high school choir teacher in East L.A. and has been part of WeHo Dodgeball since its inception over a decade ago in 2010 by local organizer Jake Mason. They’ve been grateful for how the space not only destigmatizes queer athletes but also female-identifying athletes who are allies to the LGBTQ community like herself.

“The group of people here, I will tell you that even at my own wedding, most of my invites were dodgeball people,” Rios says. “They've been my family for over a decade.”

Chris Witherspoon only joined WeHo Dodgeball a few months ago, but he’s already been sucked into the sport’s social orbit. He works as an audio engineer and commits to making the sometimes two-hour round trip from the San Fernando Valley, where he lives, to West Hollywood on Tuesdays to play dodgeball. For Witherspoon, it’s difficult trying to make LGBTQ friends in his neighborhood, so as someone who isn’t from Los Angeles, WeHo Dodgeball has helped him find a group of friends where he feels seen and included in his queerness.

“Because the LGBT community is smaller, you see a lot of the same people and the same faces,” Witherspoon says of WeHo Dodgeball. “These leagues tend to be more social. So every time we play a game, afterward, we go out to the bars.”

It’s hard to dismiss the fact that the whole reason why these queer recreational sports teams exist is because of the exclusion of queer athletes from sports. Val Horton, a league manager with WeHo Dodgeball, wants to center joy in queer recreational sports in light of all the contemporary challenges that queer and transgender people face in sports and beyond.

“We're living in a world where queer rights are being challenged every single day. And to have a place where we can come and not really have to think about that [and just be] with our people feels even more important now,” says Horton.

Trans Boxing

At Trans Boxing, over half a dozen attendees practice their fight stances, pivoting in circles while sharing grass space with their feathery neighbors at MacArthur Park on a Saturday morning (and avoiding duck poop).

As people pair up for pad work, they’re learning lifesaving skills for defense in the real world. Cal Xu has been training in martial arts long before they came out as queer. But since coming out as non-binary, Xu is uniquely aware that every time they step out into the world, they face a threat as a visibly queer person; training has helped them feel safer in their body.

“It's hard to exist as a queer person and just not hear what's going on politically,” Xu shares. “Dressing the way that I want to dress, presenting the way I want to present has felt so much more safe. Because I know that if push comes to shove and I really need to, I can defend myself.”

Trans Boxing members practice hand movements and mock sparring at MacArthur Park on a Saturday morning.

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Miles Enriquez-Morales founded Trans Boxing during the pandemic when the New York City-based organization ran classes online.

After recovering from top surgery, Enriquez-Morales started the Los Angeles chapter to offer a sanctuary for transgender and gender non-conforming people who want to participate in sports like martial arts without the toxic machismo and homophobia that can be prevalent in institutional spaces. Learning at the park is only temporary until they can find a place to call home.

“I have options where I could move the gym into a space that's very queer but maybe it's not as boxing [focused] as I would want it to be. And then maybe I could move it to a place that's very boxing-oriented and it's not as LGBTQ-accepting as I would want it to be,” Enriquez-Morales says. “Feeling like those are my only two options is really disheartening because it feels like I have to compromise.”

For now, all the equipment they use is funded by Trans Boxing’s Patreon subscribership and paid out of Enriquez-Morales’s own pocket when there is further gear needed for classes.

LBians

But not all queer groups face the same constraints on physical space. Like the lesbian bike riding group, LBians, which meets monthly to ride throughout Long Beach’s LGBTQ neighborhood. Locals call the Broadway corridor and its rainbow crosswalks “the gayborhood,” with half a dozen gay bars within walking distance.

Every month, LBians meets at Hot Java Coffee on Broadway for some exercise, and a lot of socializing — the end of every ride usually ends with drinks and food at a local brewery or bar.

Vanessa Cisneros juggles organizing these meets alongside their full-time job as a fraud analyst and stacked courseload studying software engineering. It’s not easy, but Cisneros says seeing the joy on the faces of her peers makes it all more worth it.

LBians meet up at the Beach Garden Social House, a local queer bar on Broadway after their monthly bike ride.

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“I love after every single ride someone comes to me, hugs me and thanks me for creating this awesome space. There's people who made lifelong friends here,” Cisneros says.

“Seeing this community is just awesome … [you’re] making new friends with people you won’t meet anywhere else.”

Queer Racquet Society

Part of the inclusivity of queer sports is how organizers have prioritized athletes of all skill levels and sought to make queer recreational sports the genesis for genuine connections outside the bar.

Through Queer Racquet Society, Teline Guerra has shown up amongst her sapphic peers at Griffith Park Tennis Courts while reclaiming the sport she used to play in high school.

“No one's dating-focused. You're focusing on tennis. When you're working out, no one's dressed to impress here,” said Guerra. She also points out that relationships like these, built outside the queer clubs, create change for the LGBTQ community.

On the courts of Griffith Park Tennis, Queer Racquet Society play friendly rounds of doubles.

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“Community is not who you f**k … the community that gets laws passed, the community that protests, the community that stands up for others starts with this kind of thing.”

On water and land, queer people are reclaiming access to the physicality of their bodies in the sports they love and are learning. There are still moments of discomfort when a safe space is burst, like when members of the Queer Run Club notice a man catcalling them from the sidelines. But they're able to shrug off moments like this because they have safety in numbers. And perhaps a safe space in queer sports isn’t necessarily about where you are at, but who you are with.

NEW YORK — In Brian Sanchez's slice of Astoria, the FIFA World Cup doesn't begin with the first match. It starts weeks earlier, with the arrival of a sticker album — and a mission.

It's a deceptively simple one: Fill the book with all the stickers representing World Cup teams, players, venues and other tournament details. But these stickers are sold in blind packs, similar to baseball or Pokémon cards, which adds to the fun and the headaches.

Sanchez, 20, has tried to complete the task before but never succeeded. This year, he planned to skip it altogether, but it was hard to ignore the chatter and excitement among his friends and family — both at home and abroad — who were all participating.

"Honestly it comes down to a little bit of FOMO," he said.

The hunt for stickers, produced by the Italian company Panini, is a decades-old World Cup tradition that's especially popular in Latin America and Europe. In the U.S., interest has been building steadily over the years, but this summer, the buzz is bigger than ever.

Jason Howarth, senior vice president of marketing and athlete relations at Panini America, said retailers reported being sold out of sticker packets within a week of the release in late April — unseen in previous World Cup cycles.

"There's a different energy coming out of it," he said. "Right now, it's outpacing where we were in 2022 by three to five times."

The surging demand comes as collectors face their toughest challenge yet. This year, they need to track down 980 distinct stickers to put the album to bed — 310 more than at the 2022 World Cup and a record number for the company. It's a reflection of the upcoming tournament's historic scale, which is expanding from 32 teams to 48 across three countries.

This edition will also be the second to last men's World Cup sticker album produced by Panini — ending a partnership that stretches back over five decades. Last month, FIFA announced that starting in 2031, U.S.-based Fanatics will be the official supplier of FIFA soccer cards, trading cards and stickers.

On a recent afternoon in Central Park, Sanchez met up with other collectors. Hunched over stacks of stickers, some two dozen people inspected the offerings with laser focus.

With only four stickers missing, Sanchez was already looking forward to earning bragging rights as the first person in his family across the finish line this year.

" I'm feeling pretty accomplished," he said. "I've been trying to get a win, and this is gonna be a huge win for me."

An expensive, labor-intensive but rewarding hobby

A single pack of seven stickers — available online, at corner stores or drugstore chains like Walgreens and CVS — now cost $2, compared to four years ago when five stickers retailed for around $1. That means simply buying enough packs to accumulate 980 stickers would total $280.

Given the costs, finishing the book is rarely a solitary pursuit, and aficionados often meet up to spread the wealth, according to Crista Latvis, 26, who organized the recent sticker swap in Central Park.

"You can't just buy your way into it," she said. "Otherwise,  it's super expensive and you've got to be very lucky."

For many, these gatherings are part of the pastime's draw.

"It's great to meet other people who are also doing it and also excited for the World Cup, especially since it's here," Latvis said.

Sebastian Clavijo, who attended Latvis' swap, said he spent tens of thousands of dollars on his quest this year. Clavijo, 32, has been collecting Panini stickers since he was 4. This year, his goal is to complete the book only with pieces featuring red and purple borders — an even rarer get.

" I just like soccer and I love collecting," he said. "That's my hobby, you know?"

In 2022, Panini introduced stickers with different colored borders that vary in rarity. That element has been an especially big hit with the trading card community and contributed to the hobby's appeal in the U.S., according to Howarth from Panini America.

Panini popularity has grown along with soccer

Demand has always existed in New York, Texas, Florida, among other big states, but it's also emerging nationwide, in places like Phoenix and the Northwest, according to Howarth.

" As soccer has grown, so has Panini," he said.

Howarth believes part of this year's popularity stems from the expanded World Cup format. Teams that have never qualified for the tournament — and therefore never been sticker-fied by Panini — are finally getting their moment.

For some, completing the sticker album is driven by nostalgia for their childhood, family or home country.

Linda Lino never heard of the hobby until she was 18, and her grandmother gave her a Panini sticker book. That was in 2014. Lino has completed every World Cup edition since, in part in memory of her late grandmother.

"It started with my grandma and then it became like a whole family thing," Lino said. "I love the community that it brings together."

That's especially true with her father, who never had the chance to collect stickers when he was a kid in Peru, Lino said. Now, the two are making up for lost time.

"My dad is so excited," she said. "He's like 'I want to help you. I want to put the stickers together.'"

Clemente Lisi, a sports journalist who has written about the Panini sticker phenomenon, said the sticker album serves as a time capsule for the World Cup. With the tournament's return to the U.S. after 32 years, he expects it will produce more first-time collectors looking for a way to remember this summer.

"This may be the only tangible thing from a World Cup unless you go to a game," he said.

Lisi, who also runs Planet Soccer on Substack, anticipates that the U.S. company Fanatics will further cater to the market at home.

" It'll even become more American and more baked into our culture," he said.

Sanchez, the college student from Astoria, dabbles in collecting other items, like vinyls and trading cards. But what he appreciates most about the Panini sticker scene is its supportive and rarely competitive nature.

" The community around the World Cup stickers is something like I've never seen before," he said. "The community is just so nice."

After countless hours of trading and visiting multiple convenience stores, Sanchez found his 980th and final sticker at the swap in Central Park. It was of the Iraqi team. He let out a gasp, followed by a smile that spanned ear to ear. "Let's goooo!"

With a mountain of duplicates left, Sanchez wasn't ready to move on just yet. His next step was to help his mother finish her album.

" I'm going to take a break," he said. "I'm going to celebrate today and then get back to it."

Topline:

The backstory: Once a year, dozens of sound artists converge on the hill with views of the harbor below to perform their audio art, which can range from serene to “beautifully weird.”

What to expect: This year includes a performer bending a bar of tin with his bare hands to get it to emit what’s called a "tin cry" and synthesizer-based soundscapes that take inspiration from both the ocean and the industrial space below.

When to go: Soundpedro is free and lasts from 7-10 p.m. Saturday.

More info at the Soundpedro website.

When I first came to the states many years ago, if I’d mentioned Arsenal, people would have thought I was referring to the U.S. military or something. But all that has changed. You can now watch U.K. premier league games in sports bars, most kids play soccer, and Ted Lasso is must-watch TV.

To which I say — welcome. We English are proud of the fact that soccer began with us more than 150 years ago. And every World Cup, we think, surely this will be the year that the trophy returns home — the year that we’ll win!

Queen Elizabeth II awarding the Jules Rimet World Cup Trophy to Bobby Moore after England won the 1966 World Cup final at Wembley.

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I mean it did happen … once… back in 1966. It’s such a long time ago the game was televised in black and white and shillings were still being used. My mother was nine months pregnant with my brother, and got so excited jumping up and down she went into labor and had him the next day. World Cup Willie they called him. Actually his name is David, but never mind.

Since then, every four years everyone in the U.K. watches the games with bated breath. And then something stupid will happen, and we’ll lose, like that time in 1998 when David Beckham (who played for England before he came to L.A. Galaxy) lost his temper and was sent off, and we’ll sit there, gloomy and despondent. I know because I was there in my friend’s living room in London, gloomy and despondent, thinking just once, just once, maybe could we please have a win?

David Beckham's infamous 1998 red card in the England vs. Argentina game.

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The last World Cup, I went to Ye Olde Kings Head in Santa Monica to watch England play. At 7 a.m. it was full of people already on their third pint of beer. And when the team got through to the next round, the gentle men of England ran outside the pub, whipped off their shirts and started weaving through traffic, singing football chants and acting like hooligans. I really couldn’t decide if I was embarrassed or if it felt like home.

Anyway, this time, since I’m now an American citizen, it’s in my contract that I need to support Team USA. I’m a dual citizen, though, so I’ll also be cheering for England. If by any chance Team USA and England play each other, my two selves will be watching, with a cup of tea in one hand, and a cold brewski in the other, and the polarities will explode, or something. But what will probably happen is that both teams will be eclipsed by Brazil or France playing the beautiful game… beautifully. Cheers.

You may know about Union Station as an L.A. landmark or as a transportation hub — but how much do you know about its rich architectural history?

To foster that interest and knowledge, Metro created a series of public tours of the station this spring.

“There's so much that you might just walk by without really having the opportunity to delve deeply into,” said Zipporah Lax Yamamoto, deputy executive officer of Metro’s art program. “[The tours are] a really wonderful opportunity to be able to spend time with the station, learn more about the historic landmark, which belongs to all of us.”

Union Station in Los Angeles

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Architectural style

It’s called Union Station because when it opened in 1939, it connected the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific railroads with the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railway.

While it was designed by father-and-son team Donald and John Parkinson, the architects who gave us L.A. City Hall, its style is very different. Union Station’s interior and exterior mixes art deco, Spanish colonial and other styles into a hybrid dubbed Mission Moderne.

As you begin the tour, entering from Alameda Street, tour guides ask you to look up at the decorative elements in the high ceilings. The beams and geometric patterns may look like wood — but they’re actually just painted to look that way.

A community destroyed by development

Along the way, the tour gives background on pieces created more than 30 years ago. These include "City of Dreams/River of History" by artists May Sun and Richard Wyatt in 1995. Sun’s piece uses remnants of the Chinese American homes torn down to build the station, a reference to the high price that community paid for this building’s construction.

Detail from "City of Dreams/River of History," created by artists May Sun and Richard Wyatt at Union Station.

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“It was an enormous price. Chinatown ceased to exist in this area. … The families that lived here during that time are still around and maintain archives of that time period and the original Chinatown here, and we've worked with those families to have those objects on display,” Lax Yamamoto said.

Meanwhile, Wyatt’s large-scale mural includes the face of a Chinese man, along with nine other people of different races, ethnicities and ages; a nod to the diversity of the city since its founding in the late 1700s.

There are also stops to see new art installed for the World Cup.

A mural by Richard Wyatt at Union Station

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There are three tours left in the series but the RSVPs have reached their maximum; however, Lax Yamamoto said Metro will decide whether to continue them based on what people have thought about the tours.

Meanwhile, Union Station is set to swell with people in the next couple of months as L.A. hosts World Cup games. The station is the site of an official FIFA-sponsored Fan Zone from June 25-28.