Most research on barriers to physical activity for LGBTQ+ youth has relied on adult recollections or teacher perceptions — filtered, retrospective, and often incomplete. A new mixed-methods study published in Sport Education and Society takes a different approach: it goes directly to the source, asking LGBTQ+ youth people themselves what stands in the way of their participation in physical activity, sport, and PE.
The findings carry serious implications for everyone working in physical education — from the teacher standing in a gymnasium right now, to the administrators designing school facilities, to the national organizations that set the tone for the profession.
The Research: How It Was Done
The study was conducted at Camp Rainbow, an LGBTQ+-inclusive summer camp in a conservatively legislated southeastern state. Researchers Dr. Craig Nieman and Dr. Sara Flory, along with their team, used a convergent mixed-methods design that combined a validated survey, a community mapping exercise, and focus groups. The approach was intentional: numbers alone couldn't tell the whole story, but neither could stories alone.
The community mapping component was particularly powerful. Given large sheets of paper and markers, campers were asked to visually represent the places where they felt safe — and unsafe — engaging in physical activity. For young people who had experienced trauma in these spaces, drawing proved to be an accessible first step toward talking. As Craig Nieman put it, the activity became "almost cathartic" as students recognized shared experiences: this isn't just happening to me.
Crucially, achieving an 87% participation rate with this population didn't happen by accident. It came from three years of relationship-building before a single survey was distributed. Sara Flory sat on the camp's board of directors. Craig Nieman served as a camp counselor. Trust was earned long before research began — a model worth examining for anyone hoping to reach marginalized young people.
What the Youth Said: Two Themes That Should Shape Practice
Surveillance and Dysphoria
The highest-scoring barrier on the survey was anxiety about appearance during physical activity. PE and sport environments require public performance of the body — through uniforms, competitive activity, fitness testing, and locker room routines. For LGBTQ+ youth, and especially for transgender and gender diverse students, these moments can be sites of intense scrutiny.
One camper described people staring and commenting on their body, adding simply: "I can't really change this." That feeling — of being constantly watched and judged in spaces that demand physical visibility — leads some students to avoid physical activity altogether, and others to participate while carrying a persistent undercurrent of stress and hyper-vigilance.
Sara Flory described watching campers who, in their home school environments, were likely being written off by teachers as non-participators — scaling a rock wall with "grace and ease and confidence." Students who told her they were failing PE not because they lacked ability, but because they refused to change clothes in a space that felt hostile. The barrier wasn't physical. It was structural and social.
Stuck in the Binary
Gender segregation is built into the architecture of PE: boys' locker rooms, girls' locker rooms; girls' fitness standards, boys' fitness standards; split teams by sex from elementary school onward. For students who are non-binary, transgender, or gender diverse, there is often no place in this structure that feels safe or welcoming — literally no door to walk through that doesn't require a decision that exposes them to scrutiny or criticism.
One camper changed in the bathroom to avoid the locker room entirely — and was still questioned and criticized once they arrived in class. The workaround didn't solve the problem; it just shifted where the harm occurred.
Notably, this isn't a problem that only affects LGBTQ+ students. As the researchers and host Risto Marttinen discussed, concerns about changing in front of peers are widespread. Research from the UK and Ireland shows students broadly resisting mandatory uniform changes in PE. Accommodations designed for marginalized students — gender-neutral changing areas, private cubicles, flexible groupings — benefit far more people than they're designed for. The curb-cut principle applies here: infrastructure built for accessibility tends to improve conditions for everyone.
What This Means for Teachers and Policy
For practicing PE teachers, the most actionable change may be the smallest: language. Replacing "guys" with "everyone," "class," "friends," or "y'all" signals — immediately and repeatedly — that a space is not organized around a default gender. Grouping students by skill or competitive preference rather than by sex is another low-cost, high-impact shift. These are not radical changes. They are professional ones.
For school administrators and policy makers, the study raises harder questions about physical infrastructure. Locker rooms built for a binary world will continue to produce harm until that infrastructure changes. The conversation about what new school facilities should look like — and what retrofits are possible in existing buildings — needs to happen now, not deferred until it becomes financially convenient.
For professional organizations, the researchers are direct. The study names Shape America explicitly, noting the removal of its transgender inclusion microsite and the quiet revision of DEI language from its strategic plan. As Craig Nieman states plainly: you cannot claim a commitment to inclusion while removing the tools and language that help educators act on that commitment. When guidance disappears, uncertainty fills the space — and teachers who might otherwise have acted are left without support, or become afraid to try.
The Stakes Are Real
One participant in the study described exclusion from a recreational running group as contributing to suicidal ideation. That is not an abstraction or a policy talking point. It is what can happen when sport and PE environments become hostile rather than supportive.
The evidence base is growing, and the direction it points is consistent: LGBTQ+ youth experience physical activity spaces as sites of risk as often as sites of belonging. That is a professional and ethical problem for every adult who works in those spaces — teachers, coaches, administrators, curriculum designers, and the organizations that represent them.
The youth in this study weren't asking for separate spaces or symbolic gestures. They were asking to participate fully, safely, and authentically in the same spaces as everyone else. That's not a complicated request. Meeting it just requires the will to listen — and to act on what we hear.
The full study, "LGBTQ+ Youth Perceptions of Barriers to Physical Activity in Sport: A Mixed Method Study," is published in Sport Education and Society (March 2026). Dr. Craig Nieman and Dr. Sara Flory are based at the University of South Florida.
This blog post was written with the assistance of AI to support clarity and accessibility. It is intended to help disseminate and discuss research findings with a broader audience. However, for the most accurate and reliable information—including conclusions and practical applications—please refer to the original peer-reviewed publication and in this case the audio from the podcast on which this blog is based. The peer-reviewed article remains the most authoritative source.