As the Rugby World Cup got underway Friday, a pop-up venue for LGBT and other sexual minority fans opened in Tokyo, in an initiative organizers hope to build on for next year’s Olympics and beyond.
The Pride House Tokyo 2019 in the capital’s Harajuku district will be open through Nov. 4 to disseminate information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and other sexual minorities and serve as a safe space for them during the roughly six-week-long tournament.
Located in a community space for charities, it is the first venue dedicated to awareness of sexual minorities to be launched during a Rugby World Cup and also the first in Japan. It has a library of picture books for children on sexual minorities collected from around the world. Organizers also plan to hold an event at which openly gay rugby referee Nigel Owens, a Welshman who is to officiate Friday’s opening match between Japan and Russia, will give a talk.
While the space is a first for rugby’s showcase event, similar spaces have been established in host cities for the Olympics and other international sporting events since 2010. The Pride House Tokyo Consortium, comprised of individuals, corporations and nonprofit groups, aims to open a similar venue during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. Read more via Japan Times