As Pride Month gets underway around the world, the United States Sumo Federation (USSF) has become the latest battleground in the ongoing fight for equality and access for LGBTQ people.

At the heart of the fight is growing opposition, led by a new trustee, to a longtime federation official who has not been shy about expressing his homophobic views.

Recent elections have ushered in change at the top of amateur sumo’s governing body in the U.S., and efforts are underway to remove or censure Kelly Gneiting —a USSF trustee who posted on social media about striving for a world that is "definitely queer-free.”

New USSF trustee Christina Griffin-Jones, a longtime proponent of inclusion who also sits on the City of San Diego’s Commission on Police Practices, hopes to bring a similar type of official oversight to sumo.

“I was very clear that whether I got in or not, I was going to push and advocate for Kelly to be removed, or, if that’s not possible, for him to be held accountable,” said Griffin-Jones, a member of the LGBTQ community. In addition to ridding the USSF of discrimination, ensuring that transgender and nonbinary athletes are welcome and included in the organization is of particular concern for Griffin-Jones.

“Even before I got put on as trustee, I was in communication with the federation around my concerns about the ways our trans policy wasn’t like the trans policy of the (International Olympic Committee).” As well as confirming policies and rules are up to date and enacting change at the sport’s management level, having Griffin-Jones on the USSF board also helps ensure that even small barriers to participation — such as charging more for larger T-shirt sizes — don’t go unnoticed or unchallenged.

While achieving her stated aims may require locking horns with entrenched opponents, Griffin-Jones says she is fired-up for the battle ahead, and draws strength from a USSF membership that is more open and diverse than ever before. “It’s exciting to be in a time with so many people feeling OK to be out, to be seen, but also it’s a charge for my generation to fight to keep it even safer, ‘cause there are a lot of folks (for whom) it’s still dangerous... to come out.”

The explosion in amateur sumo participation that has taken place in the United States in recent years has also become a driver of change for the organization.

While in the past, the views of Gneiting and others were compartmentalized by the USSF’s small band of enthusiasts — who could ill afford splits or drops in athlete numbers — the huge influx of new members has brought stability, as well as a desire for change.

Many of the clubs that have sprung up in recent years responded on social media to Gneiting’s recent comments, with several saying that his opinions did not reflect the values of amateur sumo, and that the veteran wrestler and official was no longer welcome at their tournaments.

Those sentiments were echoed by numerous LGBTQ members of the USSF.

For Temple Cantrell, who started a club in Savannah, Georgia, and who is trans and nonbinary, the statements Gneiting made were, “Particularly shocking, specifically because this is an outlier in amateur sumo.”

“In my experience this is definitely not the norm. There are a lot of LGBT people in amateur sumo, and everyone is very supportive of each other on many levels. It’s especially shocking to have (such views expressed) in a community that is so founded on moving forward and supporting each other.”

In fact, American amateur sumo’s openness to people who may feel unsafe in other sporting environments is one of the reasons membership has surged in recent times.

Dustin Hawkins, had never participated in organized sport before taking up sumo three years ago.

“I'm an open queer man. Going into the sport, I didn’t hide myself at all, and everyone was very accepting of that,” Hawkins said. “Everyone was very happy to have me. I never ran into any issue with anyone about my sexuality or identity.”

Like many others, Hawkins was shocked when Gneiting’s posts started getting reshared widely over the past few weeks.

"Having someone who you look up to as an athlete basically say that they want you dead, how they don’t want you to exist — not only was it surreal, it was heartbreaking.”

Matt Jim, who is the founder of Kurowashi Sumo Collective, is queer and Pawnee (an Indigenous group in the south central U.S.). His family history ensures that he is keenly aware of the danger that often follows in the wake of hate speech.

Gneiting’s stated desire to “live in a queer-free world was really jarring," Jim said. "I come from a people that survived genocide, so I don’t put up with anything like that.”

“That type of rhetoric and ideology really gets under my skin and makes me upset.”

While Gneiting may have been one of the most prominent and recognizable faces in American sumo over the past couple of decades and garnered the sport a massive amount of attention, many in the USSF felt his views and antics — such as challenging New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to a sumo match while in mawashi at a headline-grabbing confrontation in 2014 known as the Bundy standoff — damaged the sport and hindered its growth.

Now with a new wave of sumo fans and athletes succeeding on the world stage, Gneiting’s time appears to be up. The views he espouses clearly have no support among the grassroots and newer generations of sumo administrators and wrestlers.

Indeed, Griffin-Jones, Jim, Hawkins, Cantrell and dozens of others are creating a USSF that is not only doing better inside the ring. They are also developing an organization that is fairer and more open and welcoming to all.