The gay games, from its inception, being the inspiration of Tom Waddell has among its objectives the spirit of inclusion and participation, and the pursuit of personal best into a sporting event. Having started its journey with these notions, the gay games from the beginning has been open to all who wish to participate and without regard to sexual orientation. Indeed, there are no qualifying standards to compete in the gay games, and by all means brings together people from all over the globe, even from many counrties where the notion of homosexuality remains strictly illegal and forbidden! Even in the Charter of the Federation of Gay Games, the sanctioning body of the gay games, its ideals are clearly mentioned. It can be cited from its statement of concept and purpose which states, "The purpose of the Federation of Gay Games is to foster and augment the self-respect of lesbians and gay men throughout the world and to engender respect and understanding from the non-gay world, primarily through an organized international participatory athletic and cultural event held every four years, and commonly known as the Gay Game". However, Dr. Tom Waddell, the doctor and also the former Olympian who was instrumental behind the foundation of the gay games, had an intention that the gay games should be called the "Gay Olympics", however, a lawsuit that was filed in less than three weeks before the inaugural Gay Olympics of 1982 led to the change of the name. Again, regarding the name the event organizers were sued by the International Olympic Committee or the IOC and the United States Olympic Committee or the USOC, under the U.S. Amateur Sports Act of 1978, that was responsible to render the USOC to have exclusive rights to the word Olympic in the United States.

Again, from time to time differences and confusions have taken place regarding the gay games. For instance, in the year 2001, the Federation of Gay games or (FCG) awarded the seventh edition of the Gay Games to Montreal, Canada for the year 2006. Nevertheless, FGG was forced to remove its sanction in late 2003 after differences arose between it and the Montréal 2006 organizing committee, the most regarding the mode of financial transparency. While the FCG gave emphasis upon the need of a smaller event with a more conservative budget, on the contrary the Montréal organizing committee was trying to have a lavish event with 24,000 participants, twice the level of participation of the previous Gay Games in 2002. Finding no other way the sanction was withdrawn and was awarded to the Chicago, as the organiser the Gay Games VII. On the contrary, the Montréal organizing committee could not withstand this ignominy any more and decided to proceed to hold an athletic and cultural event without the sanction of the FGG, leading to the birth of the first edition of the World Outgames, and the creation of its sanctioning body, the Gay and Lesbian International Sport Association. For that time, many individual and team participants were forced to opt for one among both the Gay Games Chicago and World Outgames Montreal, and through the year the split has intensified between the two! It is yet to be seen whether the worldwide communities of LGBT athletes are willing and able to support both the Gay Games and World Outgames in the future!