By Lena Blietz

Positive changes have occurred in the last two decades at the LGBT-focused  sports league, the Chicago Metropolitan Sports Association, said coach and former player Linda Horwitz.

“There are certainly more children around as more lesbians are choosing to have children. I also think we are more trans-inclusive. In the past when my friends transitioned, they usually stopped playing,” Horwitz wrote in an email. “I don’t think that is the case currently.”

The CMSA combines athletics and the community. As the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender sports organization in the Midwest, the CMSA offers a wide variety of competitive and recreational sports. The CMSA’s women’s flag football began in the mid-1990s and has grown to include a wide range of ages.

Horwitz began playing softball with the CMSA in 1991.  She had moved to Chicago to attend graduate school at Northwestern and wanted to meet people in the LGBT community. Other members of the league said they joined for similar reasons, as well as to play sports in a large organization.