Early on a Friday morning in May, in the middle of a rugby match in Nashville, Tennessee, something strange was happening: stillness. You don’t expect much stillness from rugby, a game that’s easiest to explain to non-ruggers as a sort of cross between soccer and American football with nonstop play (and no pads). Things like scoring and rule-breaking will bring a game to a quick halt, but otherwise play surges on fiercely, unforgivingly — unless somebody’s bleeding.

And right now, Kazu Hishida was bleeding.

The Nashville Grizzlies and the Montreal Armada were bunched on a makeshift pitch at Ted Rhodes Park, standing together in small groups or taking a knee, calmly and quietly waiting while 41-year-old Kazu — Kaz, for short — was escorted to the sidelines, blood streaming freely from his eye socket. His coach, 47-year-old John Purdom, tended to him. Kaz looked annoyed at having been pulled from the game. Dark-haired and handsome, he stood a little taller than Purdom, who wore a Grizzlies jersey over a kilt and scratched his white beard with concern.

“Are you ready?” John asked him, after the worst of the bleeding had stopped.

“Fuck it,” Kaz said, flecks of red mixed with dried mud still staining his cheek. He ran back in.

This is rugby, a sport that is now played in more places around the world than ever before: According to World Rugby’s 2015 report, there are 7.73 million players in 120 countries. Men’s and women’s seven-player rugby are debuting at the Rio Olympics this summer, in a testament to the sport’s booming international popularity. But something was different today than what the world will soon see in Rio. In the bleachers at Ted Rhodes, a guy in his twenties wore a pink crop top jersey with his boyfriend’s name and number on the back amid a backdrop of rainbow umbrellas, tutus, and tank tops. Among the standard screams of “Hit him! Hit him!” and “Look where we are, boys!” were the additional cheers of “Move those cha cha heels!” and “Yaaass, honey!”

The Nashville Grizzlies celebrated their club’s 10-year anniversary this year by hosting the Bingham Cup, the world championship for international gay rugby, and the second largest rugby tournament for 15-player teams in the world. The Cup brings together amateur teams whose players rely on flexible work schedules, forgiving bosses, supportive partners, and high pain tolerances to make rugby a large part of their lives. For Bingham 2016, players on 42 teams from 21 countries poured into Nashville to duke it out for the championship — as well as to reconnect with old friends, get to know a new city, and pound the requisite gallons of beer. Since 2002, gay-inclusive teams have gathered every other year at a different spot on the globe to compete, celebrate gay inclusion in sports, and honor the memory of Mark Bingham, for whom the Cup is named; he was a founding member of two of the first gay rugby clubs in the United States before he died on United Airlines Flight 93 during the attacks on September 11.

When, in 2015, Grizzlies veteran Jon Glassmeyer spearheaded the proposal to bring Bingham to the American South for the first time, he wasn’t expecting that a rash of anti-LGBT bills were poised to spread across the country, particularly below the Mason-Dixon line. In April, the month before Bingham was held, Tennessee’s governor signed a bill allowing counselors to refuse service based on their beliefs; critics believe the measure targets LGBT therapy-seekers. And in the neighboring state of North Carolina, House Bill 2, signed in March, has inspired widespread ire, celebrity condemnations, and mass boycotts — most recently, the NBA announced it would no longer host its 2017 All-Star game in Charlotte in protest of the law.

Amid a tangible swell of anti-LGBT sentiment, hundreds of unapologetically gay ruggers, along with their friends and families, poured into Nashville to play in an unapologetically gay rugby tournament — regardless of the political turmoil unfurling around them.

Jeff Wilson, the 2012–2016 chairman of International Gay Rugby, told me over the phone that when he spoke to the European Parliament about bringing Bingham to Nashville, the biggest thing its members were concerned about was social impact, and the protection of the players in the American South. It was the kind of concern that carried all the more weight after the tournament had ended — just two weeks later, a shooter opened fire at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people and injuring dozens of others. “Someone could have shot up our opening ceremony,” Wilson reflected.

Pulse reminded a country of LGBT people — especially those of relative privilege who have fallen into a kind of complacency around queer struggle — that the war has not yet been won.

“Having events in places that aren’t traditionally accepting and safe is still important,” said Wilson. “You can’t look away from the social justice piece of gay-inclusive sports — from Nashville to Columbus, Ohio, to Nairobi, Kenya.”

“We’re still fighting for rights,” he added. “Sometimes the best way to do it is to invite people to play a rugby game.”