Local
Nats commentator apologizes for ‘sissy’ remark
D.C. sports groups say team supports LGBT community
A commentator for the Washington Nationals baseball team apologized on Wednesday for using the word “sissy” during a June 5 televised broadcast of a Nationals game against the Arizona Diamondbacks in Phoenix.
In an interview with the Washington Blade, Ray Knight, a former Major League Baseball player who serves as a commentator accompanying the Nationals’ regular announcer, said he meant no harm to anyone when he used the word. He said he didn’t realize it is sometimes used as a derogatory code word for gay men.
“I never thought one time that that would be a word that would be used to connote that,” he said, adding that he meant it as an expression calling for a baseball player to “come on, toughen up.”
“But absolutely, I get it,” he said. “Now I get it.”
In his comments during the June 5 broadcast, Knight used the term in a discussion about batters being hit by balls thrown by pitchers.
“So you don’t go up there playing the game like a sissy,” he said. “And I’m at the far end of it, I promise you. But I just don’t like all this baloney about the aggressiveness that’s been taken away.”
He was referring to a baseball rule allowing umpires to eject a pitcher from a game if the umpire believes the pitcher intentionally hits a batter with the ball.
Just prior to using the term sissy, Knight told TV viewers that he never likes to see a batter hit or injured by pitched balls. But he said the practice by pitchers of throwing “inside pitches” that come close to hitting a batter is a longstanding tradition in baseball.
Knight serves as the co-host of the Nationals’ pre-game and post-game TV shows. He was a major league player for 13 years for several teams, including the Baltimore Orioles and New York Mets and was selected twice as an All-Star player. He served as a coach and manager for the Cincinnati Reds.
His apology came one week before more than 3,000 LGBT baseball fans are expected to turn out for the annual Night Out at the Nationals game on June 21 at Washington Nationals Stadium in D.C.
Brent Minor, an official with Team D.C., the LGBT sports group that organizes the annual Night Out event at Nationals Stadium, said the Nationals have been “very supportive” of the LGBT community and have made Team D.C. and gay Nationals fans feel welcome. He noted that the Nationals had a booth at D.C.’s Capital Pride festival last Sunday and they regularly support other LGBT- and AIDS-related events and causes.
Alexandra Schauffler, a spokesperson for the Nationals, said the team had no comment on Knight’s use of the word “sissy.”
But the Nationals vice president for communications and brand development, Lara Potter, issued a statement to the Blade listing the Nationals’ recent actions in support of various LGBT-related events and causes in D.C., including next week’s Night Out with the Nationals event.
“[T]he Nationals are proud supporters of the LGBT community and have been since the team came back to D.C. in 2005,” she said.
Among other things, Potter noted that the Nationals will show on its video screen during the Night Out game a public service video from the It Gets Better Project, which seeks to curtail LGBT teen suicide.
She did not say whether the Nationals would join the San Francisco Giants, Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs in sponsoring ongoing promotional campaigns for the It Gets Better Project.
Knight’s apology also came after he learned through the Blade that Eliza Byard, executive director of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, a national group that advocates against LGBT teen bullying in the nation’s schools, expressed concern over his sissy remark.
“He could have had all the opinions he had and if you take away the sissy part I don’t see it as a problem,” said Byard, who describes herself as a longtime baseball fan.
Byard said the world “sissy” is often used as a code word for gay men or a derogatory term for women, and the term is offensive to both women and LGBT people.
“What Ray Knight did was give us a case study in how sexism and homophobia live in athletics,” she said.
“It has to be called out. It needs dialogue,” she said. “It may surprise Ray Knight to know that there are baseball fans out there that don’t have a problem with pitches that are high and tight but really, really don’t like it when he talks about it in terms that are denigrating to women and gay people.”
After being told of Byard’s concerns, Knight said he regrets using the word during his television commentary.
“I never thought about it that way, never took it in that connotation,” he said. “Certainly, never in a million years would I ever say anything that would offend someone. And if you knew me you would know that.”
Byard was relieved to hear of Knight’s apology.
“I appreciate that Ray took the time to learn about a word that is thrown around carelessly on playgrounds across the country to demean others,” Byard said. “I’m glad to hear that he will no longer use the word now that he understands its origins and impact,” she said.
“Good for him. I hope others will follow his lead and think carefully about the words they use in order to make their points forcefully but respectfully. Disrespect for others has no place in baseball or any other sport. Pitching inside, on the other hand, is still OK.”
Knight said he has followed in the news the issue of anti-LGBT bullying and supports efforts being waged by groups like GLSEN to discourage bullying in schools and elsewhere.
But when told that GLSEN and D.C.’s Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League (SMYAL), among other groups, have reported that the term sissy is often used in bullying episodes against LGBT teens, Knight said he was not aware of that.
Michael Solem, the lead organizer of G-Nats, an LGBT Nationals fan club, said he didn’t think Knight’s “sissy” remark was intended to be malicious.
“People can make poor choices of words, especially in live broadcasts,” Solem said. “I think Knight was simply implying baseball players shouldn’t be ‘wimps’ or ‘crybabies’ when it comes to getting hit.”
Rehoboth Beach
Officials raise troubling concerns about Rehoboth mayoral candidate Suzanne Goode
Homophobic emails, ‘aggressive’ behavior cited: ‘It just seems to be getting worse’
As Rehoboth Beach voters prepare to elect a new mayor on Aug. 8, some city officials and local residents are raising new concerns about the behavior of City Commissioner and mayoral candidate Suzanne Goode.
In addition to a history of troubling emails in which she has used homophobic language and criticized the city’s rainbow crosswalks, Goode is being accused of inappropriate behavior by a neighbor and a fellow Commissioner related to a dispute on the Nextdoor online platform.
The Blade spoke to City Manager Taylour Tedder, Commissioner Chris Galanty, and others about Goode’s behavior during her time as commissioner.
Goode was elected commissioner in August 2024. Fellow commissioner Susan Stewart, who is also running for mayor, criticized Goode’s behavior in a March 9, 2026 meeting, bringing up emails outlining Goode’s offensive conduct toward city staff.
In one email, Goode wrote to Rehoboth Beach City Solicitor Lisa Borin Ogden: “I am sorry that I learned from Google when you were first interviewed [in the] spring [of] 2025 that you are Jewish. My opinion of my fellow Jews declined significantly thanks to you since last summer. Actually would have thought you would have more compassion than the average person, based on your late brother. Except you don’t. I am sick of your haughty attitude toward me.”
In other emails, Goode questions why city officials encouraged CAMP Rehoboth and Clear Space Theatre to apply for grant funds. She has denigrated both institutions, referring to CAMP as a “questionable non-profit” and Clear Space as “second rate” with a “woke, drag queen bent” at times. She accuses Rehoboth’s LGBTQ community of displaying “their sex lives in public view” and fears physical violence from LGBTQ activists.
Goode disputed the claims and called for the city to remove Stewart’s remarks from the website.
The following statements were included in the emails sent by Goode:
• “Gays and theatre aficionados can donate as much as they like to these pet causes. Some taxpayers think the theatre is second-rate as community theatres go, and many dislike the RB emphasis on LGBTQ when heterosexuals don’t demand equivalent display of their sex lives in public view.”
• “Just because the LGBTQ community feels oppressed and discriminated against, that doesn’t mean that those who identify as LGBTQ are better able to recognize racial discrimination than someone like myself. It might surprise some of you to learn that I briefly dated an African American fellow college student.”
• “A performing arts and LGBTQ agenda isn’t appropriate for BOC spending when the city faces over $60M in debt.”
• “But there are some folks in town, who ironically have to remain in the closet (conservatives now have to do what gays had to do in the 20th century — ah, the irony) who object to the woke, drag queen bent of Clear Space at times. They have confided this in me, and thanked me for fighting for their tax dollars. Maybe I will regret speaking up, as some LGBTQ activist will attack me physically, even though I am a complete supporter of gay rights, and have as many gay male friends as female friends now that I live in RB with a large gay population.”
In the emails, Goode also referred to City Manager Tedder as “the mayor’s whore.”
Stewart told the Blade that the troubling behavior has since escalated.
Commissioner Chris Galanty spoke to the Blade about Goode’s behavior as commissioner and her issues with the rainbow crosswalks in town.
“Suzanne told me on two separate occasions that she didn’t like the rainbow crosswalks, and she said that she didn’t understand why they had to exist, and she didn’t understand why gay people had to advertise their sexuality, and she said straight people don’t have to do that.”
Galanty said that when he challenged her on this, she “moved very quickly to another topic.” He said that she has now shifted her perspective and is more concerned that the rainbow crosswalks are an issue of labor costs.
Goode told the Blade that, “Unfortunately, the rainbow crosswalks have potentially reduced the upkeep of the conventional crosswalks. But the rainbow crosswalks are attractive in and of themselves, and they do add to our recognition of Rehoboth’s longstanding status as a gay-friendly town.”
Accusations of “aggressive” behavior by Goode aren’t limited to emails. Last summer, Goode came to the home of Diana Jones, a property owner in Rehoboth Beach who is a neighbor of Galanty’s. Jones spoke to the Blade to share her experience with Goode.
Jones is active on Nextdoor, an online social network for neighborhoods. She said that she got involved on the platform during the time of the commissioners election last summer, in which her neighbor, Chris Galanty, was elected as commissioner.
Jones said that she made posts supporting Galanty. She said that someone posted a link of a lawsuit that involved Goode’s husband, Jeffrey Goode, who lost his race for commissioner last summer. Jones said that she reposted the link after it was taken down.
Jones said that the lawsuit was “very relevant to somebody who is running for city commissioner.”
Jones said that Suzanne Goode showed up at her house as a result of the post. Jones was out walking her dog nearby so Goode briefly spoke with Jones’s husband who was home.
“She came over to my house because she was saying I was doxing him,” said Jones. Jones said that Goode then found her as she was walking her dog and tried to talk to her about her Nextdoor posts, saying that she “brought up a very painful time in her life.”
Jones said that she has not had any communication with Goode since.
When asked for comment on the situation with Jones, Goode responded by saying “Diana Jones’s behavior toward me was despicable, and the way she has chosen to give her side of the story to news media says more about her than it will ever say about me.”
Galanty told the Blade that Goode came to his house in late June of this year when he was not home. She then called him about Jones.
“She relayed to me that she was having a disagreement with my neighbor on the Nextdoor platform, and she asked me to intercede with the neighbor,” said Galanty. “She said, ‘Please speak to her because I am frustrated with what she is saying. She needs to stop, and you need to say something to her.'”
Galanty said that Goode called him four times and texted him 32 times in the span of three and a half hours the next day.
Galanty said that he responded the next day, telling her that her behavior was inappropriate.
“Eventually it took a couple of weeks, but she apologized in her own way. She just said we just need to let it go.”
From his perspective as commissioner, Galanty said, “She likes to re-litigate things that have happened, six months ago, nine months ago. She likes to rehash issues that are in the past.”
“She can be really aggressive, and people are just really turned off by her,” said Galanty.
Tedder, who has accused Goode of creating a “hostile work environment,” told the Blade about his experiences working with Goode.
“She does not support the staff, and constantly tells us to resign,” said Tedder.
Tedder said that Goode texted City Solicitor Ogden at 7:45 a.m. on a Saturday, telling her to resign.
“Sometimes she does have good ideas. It’s just it gets so lost in these pages and pages of emails and thousands of emails that she sends,” said Tedder.
In regards to Goode’s behavior, Tedder said it has been going on since the beginning. “It just seems to be getting worse.”
Maryland
Advocates for trans students urge Md. to fight White House threats
Four school districts under federal investigation
By JESSICA CALEFATI | Allies of transgender children are urging state education officials to fight back against the Trump-Vance administration, which has threatened to punish a growing number of Maryland school districts over local policies that affirm students’ gender identities.
The advocates testified Tuesday morning before the Maryland State Board of Education — one day after the U.S. Education and Justice departments alleged that Anne Arundel County’s school system violated federal student privacy law by withholding a student’s gender identity from their parents. A spokesperson for the district said Monday legal counsel had not yet reviewed the claims and that the district had no further comment.
School districts in Prince George’s, Montgomery, and Frederick Counties were already under investigation for allegedly violating Title IX, the civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination. The federal government last month threatened to revoke funding from the districts because they allow trans students to use restrooms and locker rooms that align with their identities.
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Maryland
White House threatens Anne Arundel schools over gender identity policy
District faces possible legal action or loss of federal funding
By JESSICA CALEFATI | The Trump-Vance administration on Monday threatened to punish Anne Arundel County’s school system with legal action or the loss of federal funding for allegedly withholding information about a student’s gender identity and transition from the child’s parents.
The U.S. Education and Justice Departments together determined that the suburban Maryland district treats students’ gender identities as confidential medical information that cannot be shared with parents, in violation of federal student privacy law, according to a news release. A federal lawsuit filed against the district earlier this month made similar claims.
“As a mother and a grandmother, it is unconscionable that any school district would hide the most sensitive information about children in their care from their own parents,” U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a statement. “This is not only an affront to basic moral principles, but also to parents’ rights under federal law.”
The rest of this article can be read on the Baltimore Banner’s website.
Matthew Rosenstein in ‘Make Me French’ a hit at Clear Space Theatre
White House orders warning signs at Smithsonian over gender identity exhibits
Rainbows in Revolt on a mission to make LGBTQ artists’ voices heard
Officials raise troubling concerns about Rehoboth mayoral candidate Suzanne Goode
Blade participates in Dutch university course on international LGBTQ rights law
Pentagon says hormones make trans troops unfit but gives them to men
Winsome Earle-Sears launches campaign against Va. marriage equality amendment
Calendar: July 24-30
1 dead, 29 injured in Berlin Pride attack
