The Gay Games are held every four years. The magic of the event is that everyone is welcome and shows up. If you are gay, that's awesome. If you're not, that's awesome. If you compete in masters world championships and train all the time, that's celebrated. If you want to walk the 10K, that's amazing. The official gay games bring together about 10,000 athletes and 30,000 friends and family and take place over two weeks, so there is no way to mirror them fully in one or two days, but we're excited to try and share some of the joy that they bring with all of you.

We'll share more specifics on categories and rules as we get closer. Please suggest categories you are excited about / any event you've ever wanted to compete in and we'll figure out how to include it.

As background, here are some pictures from the first games Anna SJ did in Cologne. Of all the gay games, Cologne was so far the best of the solo gay games.

Last summer Anna and I did our first gay games together in Guadalajara. The next official gay games after our wedding is in Valencia, Spain. We'll be actively recruiting anyone who wants to join :)

The following are just a few examples. We want to celebrate all of you for the things you are excellent at or love, so let us know how you would like to be included.

Bring something no one has ever tried or is just its very best self. We'll likely have events for best locally grown, best through global acquisition, tastiest, weirdest.

We'll have a bunch of pre-made ganache and mix ins so everyone can join the truffle making competition, and possibly some molds to use to make formed chocolate shapes. Likely categories include best truffle truffle (no shell), best with nuts, top dragon.

Anna WB's never really liked cakes, so for one birthday we did a dinner that was all not cake cakes. We had sushi cake, fruits in the shape of cake, tamale cake, vegetables as cake. For this event, bring any not cake cake you'd love to share with others and we'll make enough categories so every cake is recognized for its not cakeness.

A little like top chef, but without the need to make it on the show. Categories are teas, coffees, and all the fruits in any form. Thank you to Russell for sending such beautiful donut pictures. It was hard to pick just one, but we didn't want to give away all your secrets :)

Stinson Beach Relay captained by Albie! Stinson beach is about 2 miles. This is likely to be our most physical of the physical events. You can do the relay with as many people as you want. Since it's long, wet and sandy we will likely do the relay on Friday. We'll have a category for fastest really, largest number of cool rocks and other objects collected, and best team theme.

Bring a rock to show off, or find one on the beach. One of Stinson's coolest qualities is that fossilized sand dollars, other shells and bones wash up on one end (although the beach has changed shape in the last year making the hunting some amount harder).

We'll have a ton of cyanotype making supplies (both paper and textiles) with the goal of making a few pieces of collective art, and would love help gathering cool objects to cast shadows. Rocks, stones, leaves, feathers. The actual cyanotype making will be non-competitive, and just a thing to do together :)

Whether you're a dragon or a bird person (or both), we'll have a spot for you! Other categories will likely include but not be limited to chess, tiddlywinks, and if we're extra lucky a custom mystery hunt by Pweaver.

Possibly the most competitive category at these gay games, top policy is an open category. Pick your topic, your favorite graphs, the aspect of the world that you wish was different, and propose the policy change that gets us there in 60 seconds or so. We'll provide the food and musicians :)

For the final event of the gay games, we hope as many people as possible will participate at whatever pace makes you the happiest. We'll use this event to bring everyone together on to the beach for a sunset group photo, toasts, medal ceremony, and closing celebration (of the gay games, before dinner).