It's because 25 April happened that it's possible for someone to dream up and create a team like Douro Bats. To be part of this futsal team, the requirements are to accept others as they are, sympathise with the LGBTQIA+ community and enjoy sport. Vitor Gonçalves, an anaesthetist, was responsible for founding this association.

"It was the space that was missing; here we accept difference." Tired of the locker room whispers and awkward silences that are felt in sports such as football, where being homosexual or transgender is still a source of prejudice, Vítor decided to create this "safe space for those who want to play the sport, regardless of their gender or sexual orientation". Today, the association already has over a hundred athletes.

It's at the Porto Cultural and Sports Centre (CCD Porto), where he trains with his team every week, that he tells us about the aims of Douro Bats. "We want to deconstruct the idea that homosexuals don't have the ability to practise this sport," he says. Vítor argues that sexual orientation is not correlated with a love of sport or technical competence. "Men, women, non-binary, everyone plays well, some better than others," he says, and that's why athletes are placed at different competitive levels to keep them motivated.

Vítor Gonçalves reflects on what still needs to change: "There are countries where it's no longer necessary to have associations like this, but in Portugal it still is." In order to deconstruct the current paradigm, physical education in schools must play "a fundamental role", he argues. There are established prejudices that need to be broken down. "Why can't a boy choose ballet or figure skating? Or why can't a girl play football well? These are ideas that limit us and limit the children; the prejudice is not in the children, but in the parents."