Sports
An athlete and an ally
Hudson Taylor continues his LGBT advocacy on and off the mats
Hudson Taylor and his wife were wed in D.C., because they wanted to get married in a place where their gay friends enjoy the same opportunity. (Blade photo by Pete Exis)
When you listen to Hudson Taylor speak, you hear words like “diversity,” “respect,” “inclusion” and “safe space.” Those may be common words for LGBT rights advocates, but Taylor is anything but common. He is a recently married 24-year-old straight man who spent most of his life going to the mats to hone his skills in the sport of wrestling. Now, he is going to the mat for us, the LGBT community.
We have been lucky in the past year to see a growing list of straight sports allies speaking out against bullying and discrimination in sports. Ben Cohen, Charles Barkley, Brian Burke and Paul Tagliabue are just a few to grab national headlines recently.
With all the attention that Taylor has been generating lately, I found myself curious as to why one person was making such a difference. Hudson and his wife Lia were at the Team DC Champions Awards/College Scholarship reception in October at the HRC Building, with Taylor being the keynote speaker. After several hours of mingling with the guests and award recipients, the duo had managed to charm the socks off of everyone in attendance. Both are sincere and charismatic.
Taylor’s journey to LGBT advocacy began at the University of Maryland where he was a theater major and a three-time All-American in wrestling. Over the course of his collegiate career, he noticed the difference between the welcoming atmospheres of the theater community and the homophobic environment of the locker room.
After HRC came to the campus looking for supporters and volunteers, Taylor began wearing an HRC sticker on his wrestling headgear that made national headlines. Outsports wrote an article about him in February 2010 and Taylor subsequently received more than 2,000 emails from supporters and young, closeted teens.
When asked about the responsibility that comes with having troubled teens asking for direction, Taylor responds, “It is a difficult responsibility and I am not a trained professional. I am, however, a good listener and capable of pointing people to a safe space.”
With all the attention that he was generating, Taylor decided to put law school on hold and create his own non-profit organization, Athlete Ally. The organization encourages people to make a pledge to respect and welcome all types of athletes. In the future the organization hopes to become a resource to connect young people with others like them.
Taylor and Lia have finished up their schooling at the University of Maryland and George Washington University respectively, and are currently living in New York City where Taylor is an assistant wrestling coach at Columbia University and Lia is practicing law.
Taylor continues to speak nationally about diversity, inclusion and respect to high schools, colleges and corporations such as Nike and Walmart. Lia said, “The reception has been huge with some of the venues holding up to 3,000 people.”
Taylor was recently named to the advisory board of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network’s (GLSEN) new sports initiative, “Changing the Game.” The mission of the initiative is to assist K-12 schools in creating and maintaining an athletic and physical education climate that is based on the core principles of respect, safety and equal access for all. “We will be creating programs to educate coaches, administrators, parents, students and fans,” Hudson said.
Why do we need groups like Athlete Ally and GLSEN? There are hundreds, probably thousands, of LGBT teenagers in America who are not playing sports because they fear the repercussions of joining a community that is historically unwelcoming. Try to imagine what would happen if the sports community was as welcoming as say, the theater community.
In the middle of all the changes going on in their lives, Taylor and Lia were married in Washington, D.C., in September of 2011. When I asked why they were married in D.C. (they are from New Jersey and New York respectively), the response was incredibly touching.
“When we first started planning the wedding, the Marriage Equality Act in New York had not yet passed,” Taylor said. “We wanted to stay true to our values as many of our friends were unable to get married in New York.”
In the coming months, Taylor will also make a run at the 2012 Olympic wrestling team. “I have been wrestling since I was 5 years old and I still love to compete,” he said. “I will participate in a few upcoming tournaments to see if a run at the 2012 Olympics is plausible.”
Based on what he has accomplished in his life so far, I wouldn’t bet against him. Hudson Taylor, you rock. You can make the pledge and/or donate to this worthy cause at athleteally.org.
Sports
Attitude! French ice dancers nail ‘Vogue’ routine
Cizeron and Fournier Beaudry strike a pose in memorable Olympics performance
Madonna’s presence is being felt at the Olympic Games in Italy.
Guillaume Cizeron and his rhythm ice dancing partner Laurence Fournier Beaudry of France performed a flawless skate to Madonna’s “Vogue” and “Rescue Me” on Monday.
The duo scored an impressive 90.18 for their effort, the best score of the night.
“We’ve been working hard the whole season to get over 90, so it was nice to see the score on the screen,” Fournier Beaudry told Olympics.com. “But first of all, just coming out off the ice, we were very happy about what we delivered and the pleasure we had out there. With the energy of the crowd, it was really amazing.”
Watch the routine on YouTube here.
Italy
Olympics Pride House ‘really important for the community’
Italy lags behind other European countries in terms of LGBTQ rights
The four Italian advocacy groups behind the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics’ Pride House hope to use the games to highlight the lack of LGBTQ rights in their country.
Arcigay, CIG Arcigay Milano, Milano Pride, and Pride Sport Milano organized the Pride House that is located in Milan’s MEET Digital Culture Center. The Washington Blade on Feb. 5 interviewed Pride House Project Manager Joseph Naklé.
Naklé in 2020 founded Peacox Basket Milano, Italy’s only LGBTQ basketball team. He also carried the Olympic torch through Milan shortly before he spoke with the Blade. (“Heated Rivalry” stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie last month participated in the torch relay in Feltre, a town in Italy’s Veneto region.)
Naklé said the promotion of LGBTQ rights in Italy is “actually our main objective.”
ILGA-Europe in its Rainbow Map 2025 notes same-sex couples lack full marriage rights in Italy, and the country’s hate crimes law does not include sexual orientation or gender identity. Italy does ban discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, but the country’s nondiscrimination laws do not include gender identity.
ILGA-Europe has made the following recommendations “in order to improve the legal and policy situation of LGBTI people in Italy.”
• Marriage equality for same-sex couples
• Depathologization of trans identities
• Automatic co-parent recognition available for all couples
“We are not really known to be the most openly LGBT-friendly country,” Naklé told the Blade. “That’s why it (Pride House) was really important for the community.”
“We want to use the Olympic games — because there is a big media attention — and we want to use this media attention to raise the voice,” he added.
Naklé noted Pride House will host “talks and roundtables every night” during the games that will focus on a variety of topics that include transgender and nonbinary people in sports and AI. Another will focus on what Naklé described to the Blade as “the importance of political movements now to fight for our rights, especially in places such as Italy or the U.S. where we are going backwards, and not forwards.”
Seven LGBTQ Olympians — Italian swimmer Alex Di Giorgio, Canadian ice dancers Paul Poirier and Kaitlyn Weaver, Canadian figure skater Eric Radford, Spanish figure skater Javier Raya, Scottish ice dancer Lewis Gibson, and Irish field hockey and cricket player Nikki Symmons — are scheduled to participate in Pride House’s Out and Proud event on Feb. 14.
Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood representatives are expected to speak at Pride House on Feb. 21.
The event will include a screening of Mariano Furlani’s documentary about Pride House and LGBTQ inclusion in sports. The MiX International LGBTQ+ Film and Queer Culture Festival will screen later this year in Milan. Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood is also planning to show the film during the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Naklé also noted Pride House has launched an initiative that allows LGBTQ sports teams to partner with teams whose members are either migrants from African and Islamic countries or people with disabilities.
“The objective is to show that sports is the bridge between these communities,” he said.
Bisexual US skier wins gold
Naklé spoke with the Blade a day before the games opened. The Milan Cortina Winter Olympics will close on Feb. 22.
More than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes are competing in the games.
Breezy Johnson, an American alpine skier who identifies as bisexual, on Sunday won a gold medal in the women’s downhill. Amber Glenn, who identifies as bisexual and pansexual, on the same day helped the U.S. win a gold medal in team figure skating.
Glenn said she received threats on social media after she told reporters during a pre-Olympics press conference that LGBTQ Americans are having a “hard time” with the Trump-Vance administration in the White House. The Associated Press notes Glenn wore a Pride pin on her jacket during Sunday’s medal ceremony.
“I was disappointed because I’ve never had so many people wish me harm before, just for being me and speaking about being decent — human rights and decency,” said Glenn, according to the AP. “So that was really disappointing, and I do think it kind of lowered that excitement for this.”
Puerto Rico
Bad Bunny shares Super Bowl stage with Ricky Martin, Lady Gaga
Puerto Rican activist celebrates half time show
Bad Bunny on Sunday shared the stage with Ricky Martin and Lady Gaga at the Super Bowl halftime show in Santa Clara, Calif.
Martin came out as gay in 2010. Gaga, who headlined the 2017 Super Bowl halftime show, is bisexual. Bad Bunny has championed LGBTQ rights in his native Puerto Rico and elsewhere.
“Not only was a sophisticated political statement, but it was a celebration of who we are as Puerto Ricans,” Pedro Julio Serrano, president of the LGBTQ+ Federation of Puerto Rico, told the Washington Blade on Monday. “That includes us as LGBTQ+ people by including a ground-breaking superstar and legend, Ricky Martin singing an anti-colonial anthem and showcasing Young Miko, an up-and-coming star at La Casita. And, of course, having queer icon Lady Gaga sing salsa was the cherry on the top.”
La Casita is a house that Bad Bunny included in his residency in San Juan, the Puerto Rican capital, last year. He recreated it during the halftime show.
“His performance brought us together as Puerto Ricans, as Latin Americans, as Americans (from the Americas) and as human beings,” said Serrano. “He embraced his own words by showcasing, through his performance, that the ‘only thing more powerful than hate is love.’”
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