Sports
Out and proud in Uganda
LGBT athletes find openness and obstacles in various sports
Last year, the Washington Blade spotlighted United States lawyer Nate Freeman on his journey across Africa to raise awareness for LGBT rights through his Out in Africa Ride foundation.
Freeman is back in Africa to continue the work that was started on that ride. The obstacles for social change in the LGBT community in Africa are great, but Freeman has encountered a number of organizations fostering change on a grass-roots level.
Last year, he rode his bike from Cairo to Cape Town to meet with LGBT activists in 10 different countries. He now works in Kampala, Uganda for Human Rights Awareness and Promotions Forum, an organization that provides free legal aid services for LGBT people.
Those services include assisting LGBT people who have been arrested and training paralegals to represent LGBT people in their communities. Money raised from the Out in Africa Ride (outinafricaride.org) has funded a project to help LGBT non-profits comply with all the necessary legalities, such as registering the organization and instituting a proper board of directors.
Uganda criminalizes same-sex relationships and the environment for LGBT people there is difficult. A number of committed Ugandan activists are involved in important work to create a better environment for the future.
After Freeman settled into his work in Kamapala and began networking, he was pleasantly surprised to find a fledgling LGBT sports community in the area.
Organizations such as the Uganda Network for Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Persons, FEM Alliance, Freedom and Roam Uganda and Sexual Minorities Uganda all have members and staff who are LGBT athletes. So far, Freeman has encountered LGBT athletes in the sports of rugby, basketball, soccer and swimming.
Warry Ssenfuka, executive director of Freedom and Roam Uganda, is also captain of the national Uganda womenās rugby team. She is openly lesbian and says that while many remain in the closet for fear of discrimination, the rugby world has become a safer place for the LGBT community. Although Ssenfuka has been attacked verbally, she usually ends up as friends with those who have criticized her.
āOur efforts are all about benefitting the communities and sports offer a huge opportunity for camaraderie,ā Freeman says. āGaining acceptance for LGBT people requires a multi-pronged approach and it will focus on the arts, business and sports in addition to the legal and health issues that the communities face.ā
Often times, it is just the āwhisperingsā of their sexual orientation or gender identities that set up the obstacles for the LGBT athletes and results in their teams being disbanded.
The soccer team has been shut down for a year though members are still playing pick-up and are looking to compete again. The Magic Stormers basketball team is now experiencing the same problems and the lack of sponsors has led to loss of court time, jerseys and good players.
Two members of the Magic Stormers, Apako Williams and Jay Mulucha, are trans men. Williams, executive director of the Uganda Network, and Mulucha, executive director of FEM Alliance, were victims of a hate crime several months ago perpetrated in a sports bar by fellow athletes.
Despite the attacks, Williams and Mulucha hope they can take a basketball team to compete in the 2018 Gay Games in Paris.
āIf we come out and show that we are strong,ā Mulucha says, āwe can encourage even those people in the LGBT community who have lost it all to have hope.ā
As a test case to pave the road to the Gay Games, Freeman is looking for an opportunity to send six swimmers to Edmonton, Canada for the International Gay & Lesbian Aquatics Championships in August.
He is being assisted by Williams and Mulucha, as well as by Diane Bakuraira, an administrator at Sexual Minorities Uganda who trained on the national Uganda swim team. Because she was gender non-conforming, she was never asked to compete in international competitions. For her, the world championships are an opportunity to increase visibility.
āThe world has low perceptions of LGBT people and of Africans,ā she says. āWe want to show that we can compete.ā
The idea for sending the swimmers is a long shot for two reasons: visas and funding.
LGBT Ugandans have had a difficult time getting visas to Canada in the past including a contingent of Ugandans who were invited to Toronto Pride in 2015. Freeman is hoping the Justin Trudeau government will be more open to granting visas and that the Ugandans can allay any fears about those who may seek asylum.
āāWe have identified a team of swimmers who we believe pose an extremely low risk of seeking asylum,ā Freeman says. āThese swimmers are all employed and well-connected members of the community who want to remain in Uganda with their families to fight for greater equality.ā
As for funding, Freeman has been in contact with a network of high-end donors in several U.S. cities who are interested in global LGBT issues. The problem facing the request for sports funding is that human rights organizations and health organizations are where donors usually offer their support.
āObviously I am advocating for all LGBT issues, but the law isnāt going to change here in the near future,ā Freeman says. āA big push for all of the issues would result from economic assistance and more visibility of the athletes.ā
He says the desire for visibility and openness is the same thing driving LGBT athlete all over the world.
āIn some ways, this is the reclamation of their own body by saying they can still use it to play athletics,ā says Freeman. āThe government and society canāt dictate what they do with their own bodies.ā
CONTENT WARNING: The following story discusses suicide ideation.
Her first few weeks behind bars in a Russian prison took a terrible toll on Brittney Griner, the lesbian WNBA star who is breaking her silence on the 10 months she was held on drug-related charges.
“I wanted to take my life more than once in the first weeks,” Griner told ABC’s Robin Roberts in a primetime interview Wednesday. “I felt like leaving here so badly.”
The two-time Olympic gold medalist and nine-time WNBA All-Star, who plays for the Phoenix Mercury, said she ultimately decided against suicide, partly because she feared Russian authorities would not release her body to her wife, Cherelle Griner.
Griner, 33, was arrested on Feb. 17, 2022, at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Khimki, a suburb of Moscow. Authorities said they found vape cartridges in her luggage containing cannabis oil, which is illegal in the country.
Griner told Roberts that was the result of a āmental lapseā on her part ā packing the cannabis oil cartridges in her luggage, Griner said that she had overslept on the morning she was leaving for Russia to play during the WNBA’s off-season, which is how many of the leagueās vastly underpaid players earn a living, compared to NBA players.
So, she packed while she was āin panic mode,ā Griner said.
āMy packing at that moment was just throwing all my stuff in there and zipping it up and saying, āOK, I’m ready,āā she told Roberts.
After landing in Russia, Griner realized that she had those two cannabis oil cartridges in her luggage as Russian security officers inspected her bag at the airport. She recalled the moment as a sinking feeling.
āI’m just like, āOh, my God.ā Like, āHow did I ā how did I make this mistake?āā Griner said. āI could just visualize everything I worked so hard for just crumbling and going away.ā
Russian authorities immediately arrested Griner, but her trial would not take place for five months. She described the horrible conditions of her imprisonment during that delay, saying that she didnāt always have toilet paper and that the toothpaste they gave her had expired about 15 years ago.
āThat toothpaste was expired,ā she said. āWe used to put it on the black mold to kill the mold on the walls.ā
āThe mattress had a huge blood stain on it, and they give you these thin two sheets,ā she added. āSo you’re basically laying on bars.ā
On July 7, 2022, Griner pleaded guilty at her trial to drug charges, admitting that she had the vape cartridges containing cannabis oil but stating she put them in her luggage unintentionally. She testified that she had packed the cartridges by accident, and had “no intention” to break Russian law.
Roberts pressed Griner on this point: āYou know there are those who say, āCome on. How did you not know that you had cartridges in your luggage?āā
āIt’s just so easy to have a mental lapse,ā Griner replied. āGranted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale. But it doesn’t take away from how that can happen,ā she explained.
Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison on Aug. 4, 2022, and in October 2022, a judge denied the appeal filed by Griner’s attorneys.
The sentence landed Griner in a penal colony in the Russian region of Mordovia.
āItās a work camp. You go there to work,ā said Griner. āThere’s no rest.ā Her job was cutting fabric for Russian military uniforms.
āWhat were the conditions like there?ā Roberts asked.
āReally cold,ā Griner said. So cold that her health was impacted and she decided to chop off her long dreadlocks.
āWhat was that like losing that part of you, too?ā Roberts asked Griner.
āHonestly, it just had to happen. We had spiders above my bed ā making nests,ā she said. āMy dreads started to freeze,ā she added. āThey would just stay wet and cold and I was getting sick. You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do to survive.ā
Her arrest came around the same time as Russiaās invasion of Ukraine, further increasing tensions between Russia and the U.S. But as the Los Angeles Blade reported on Dec, 8, 2022, Russia agreed to release Griner in exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
However, before winning her freedom, Griner revealed authorities forced her to write a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“They made me write this letter. It was in Russian,” she said. “I had to ask for forgiveness and thanks from their so-called great leader. I didn’t want to do it, but at the same time I wanted to come home.”
Griner said her heart sank upon boarding the plane to freedom and finding that Paul Whelan, another American the White House said was āwrongfully detained,ā wasn’t leaving Russia with her.
“I walked on and didn’t see him, maybe he’s next. Maybe they will bring him next,” she said. “They closed the door, and I was like, are you serious? You’re not going to let this man come home now.”
Griner recounts on the experience in āComing Home,ā a memoir set to be released on May 7.
988 is the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline and is available 24/7 via phone, text or chat to everyone of all ages, orientations and identities. If you are a transgender, nonbinary, or gender-nonconforming person considering suicide, Trans Lifeline can be reached at 877-565-8860. LGBTQ+ youth (ages 24 and younger) can reach the Trevor Project Lifeline at 1-866-488-7386. You can still also contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 24 hours a day, and itās available to people of all ages and identities.
Additional resources:
If you are in a life-threatening situation, please dial 911.
If you are in crisis, please dial 988 or contact Rainbow Youth Project directly at +1 (317) 643-4888
Sports
Bisexual former umpire sues Major League Baseball for sexual harassment
Brandon Cooper claims female colleague sexually harassed him
A fired former umpire is suing Major League Baseball, claiming he was sexually harassed by a female umpire and discriminated against because of his gender and his sexual orientation.
Brandon Cooper worked in the minor league Arizona Complex League last year, and according to the lawsuit he filed Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan, he identifies as bisexual.
āI wanted my umpiring and ability to speak for itself and not to be labeled as āBrandon Cooper the bisexual umpire,āā he told Outsports. āI didnāt want to be labeled as something. It has been a passion of mine to simply make it to the Major Leagues.ā
But that didnāt happen. Instead of being promoted, he was fired. His suit names MLB and an affiliated entity, PDL Blue, Inc., and alleges he had endured a hostile work environment and wrongful termination and/or retaliation because of gender and sexual orientation under New York State and New York City law.
āHistorically the MLB has had a homogenous roster of umpires working in both the minor and major leagues,ā Cooper claims in his suit. āSpecifically, to date there has never been a woman who has worked in a (regular) season game played in the majors, and most umpires are still Caucasian men. To try to fix its gender and racial diversity issue, defendants have implemented an illegal diversity quota requiring that women be promoted regardless of merit.ā
Cooper claims former umpire Ed Rapuano, now an umpire evaluator, and Darren Spagnardi, an umpire development supervisor, told him in January 2023 that MLB had a hiring quota, requiring that at least two women be among 10 new hires.
According to the suit, Cooper was assigned to spring training last year and was notified by the senior manager of umpire administration, Dusty Dellinger, that even though he received a high rating in June from former big league umpire Jim Reynolds, now an umpire supervisor, that women and minority candidates had to be hired first.Ā
Cooper claims that upon learning Cooper was bisexual, fellow umpire Gina Quartararo insulted him and fellow umpire Kevin Bruno by using homophobic slurs and crude remarks. At that time, Quartararo and Cooper worked on the same umpiring crew and being evaluated for possible promotion to the big leagues.
This season, Quartararo is working as an umpire in the Florida State League, one of nine women who are working as minor league umpires.
Cooper said he notified Dellinger, but instead of taking action against Quartararo, he said MLB ordered Cooper to undergo sensitivity training. According to his lawsuit, he was also accused of violating the minor league anti-discrimination and harassment policy.
Cooperās suit says he met with MLB Senior Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Billy Bean ā who the Los Angeles BladeĀ reported in DecemberĀ is battling cancer.Ā
The lawsuit says at that meeting, Bean told the umpire that Quartararo claimed she was the victim, as the only female umpire in the ACL. Cooper said he told Bean Quartararo regularly used homophobic slurs and at one point physically shoved him. He also claims that he has video evidence, texts and emails to prove his claim.
But he said his complaints to Major League Baseball officials were ignored. His lawsuit said MLB passed him over for the playoffs and fired him in October. He said of the 26 umpires hired with Cooper, he was the only one let go.
Through a spokesperson, MLB declined to comment on pending litigation. Quartararo has also not publicly commented on the lawsuit.
Sports
Brittney Griner, wife expecting first child
WNBA star released from Russian gulag in December 2022
One year after returning to the WNBA after her release from a Russian gulag and declaring, āIām never playing overseas again,ā Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner and her wife announced they have something even bigger coming up this summer.
Cherelle, 31, and Brittney, 33, are expecting their first child in July. The couple shared the news with their 715,000 followers on Instagram.
āCanāt believe weāre less than three months away from meeting our favorite human being,ā the caption read, with the hashtag, #BabyGrinerComingSoon and #July2024.
Griner returned to the U.S. in December 2022 in a prisoner swap, more than nine months after being arrested in Moscow for possession of vape cartridges containing prescription cannabis.
In April 2023, at her first news conference following her release, the two-time Olympic gold medalist made only one exception to her vow to never play overseas again: To return to the Summer Olympic Games, which will be played in Paris starting in July, the same month āBaby Grinerā is due. āThe only time I would want to would be to represent the USA,ā she said last year.
Given that the unrestricted free agent is on the roster of both Team USA and her WNBA team, itās not immediately clear where Griner will be when their first child arrives.
The Griners purchased their āforever homeā in Phoenix just last year.
āPhoenix is home,ā Griner said at the Mercuryās end-of-season media day, according toĀ ESPN. āMe and my wife literally just got a place. This is it.ā
As the Los Angeles Blade reported last December, Griner is working with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts ā like Griner, a married lesbian ā on an ESPN television documentary as well as a television series for ABC about her life story. Cherelle is executive producer of these projects.
Next month, Grinerās tell-all memoir of her Russian incarceration will be published by Penguin Random House. Itās titled “Coming Home” and the hardcover hits bookstores on May 7.
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