🟣 Welcome to TIME TO TEAM: making sport truly for everyone

We are proud to launch TIME TO TEAM (TTT), a new European initiative co-funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ Sport programme. This 15-month project brings together sport associations, youth organisations, coaches, and activists from across Europe with one shared mission: to make sport a safer, more inclusive, and empowering space for transgender people—particularly in team sports.

Why TIME TO TEAM?

Sport has the extraordinary ability to bring people together, to build confidence, and to create a sense of belonging. It teaches us how to listen, how to support one another, and how to play as a team. But what happens when sport itself becomes a place of exclusion?

Many transgender people avoid sports spaces altogether, not because they don’t love sport, but because they feel unsafe, judged, or invisible. According to the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), 42% of LGBTQI+ people—many of them trans—avoid sport environments for safety reasons. This means missing out not only on the physical benefits of sport, but also on its psychological and social potential.

That is the starting point of TIME TO TEAM: a project that recognises the exclusion of trans people from sport as a shared European problem, and proposes concrete, local solutions through education, training, and community work.

Who we are

The project is coordinated by TKD Rosignano (Italy), a grassroots Taekwondo association with a strong community spirit, and brings together a committed consortium of partners:

• YMCAROMA Empowering Young People (Italy) – specialists in youth work, summer camps and psychological support for LGBTQI+ young people;

• CDES Miguel Torga (Portugal) – a leading gymnastics club promoting access to sport for people of all ages and identities;

• SPORTSROOM (Bulgaria) – an NGO using sport and non-formal education as a tool for social innovation and youth empowerment.

Each partner brings a unique perspective and a strong commitment to inclusion, creating a diverse and experienced team ready to develop new practices and tools.

What we’ll do

Over the course of the project, TIME TO TEAM will:

• organise transnational meetings and local trainings for coaches, youth workers and sport managers;

• explore the barriers faced by transgender people in sport;

• provide safe and open spaces for reflection, exchange and practical learning;

• develop a "Guide to the inclusion of transgender people in sports associations and team sports", a resource to be shared across Europe.

Activities will be based on non-formal education, group work, sport practice, storytelling and participatory methods—because change happens when people learn together.

A European response to a European challenge

Inclusion and diversity are at the heart of the Erasmus+ Sport programme. With TIME TO TEAM, we contribute to the wider EU effort to build more equitable, welcoming and respectful societies, where everyone can access the benefits of sport—regardless of gender identity, background or ability.

We believe that sport must not only be a place for competition, but also a space of care, freedom and growth. This is our vision. This is our mission.

So, welcome on board. It’s time to act.

It’s TIME TO TEAM.