Sports
Once paralyzed, gay rower eyes London
Former D.C. resident training for Paralympic Games
Jason Beagle was paralyzed from the waist after a 1994 car accident. (Photo by M.V. Jantzen)
In 1994, Jason Beagle was in a car accident that left him with shattered vertebrae, paralyzed from the waist down. Spinal fusion and many months of therapy enabled Beagle to regain the use of his legs.
Eventually, he was able to walk without a cane but still had to deal with physical limitations and some paralysis. After moving to D.C. to pursue work as a director at the Shakespeare Theatre, Beagle decided to test his body and joined the LGBT sports team, Chesapeake and Potomac Softball (CAPS).
“I wanted to try a sport that I had played before the accident,” said Beagle. “It turned out that softball was a little bit beyond my limits.”
In 2007, he joined another LGBT sports team, the DC Strokes Rowing Club (DCSRC) and entered the “Learn to Row” program. Beagle ended up falling in love with the sport and went on to compete in rowing regattas with the team and eventually became president of the club.
With the encouragement of DCSRC Coach Patrick Johnson, Beagle joined Capital Adaptive which was a new program offered by the Capital Rowing Club. Capital Adaptive was formed to introduce the Washington area’s population of disabled military veterans and civilians to the sport of rowing.
“I wanted to see what it was like to row with other athletes with disabilities,” says Beagle. “I was classified as an adaptive rower with functional use of his legs, trunk and arms (LTA).”
At the start of 2011, Beagle received an email from U.S. Rowing Coach, Karen Lewis, inviting him to a development camp at the Oklahoma City National High Performance Center (OKC-NHPC). At the conclusion of the development camp, he was invited to the international selection camp for adaptive rowers to be contested in June 2011.
With only 10 weeks to train, and along with help from the DC Strokes and Capital Adaptive, Beagle adopted a high performance training program that consisted of four hours of rowing a day along with his 45-hour work week.
Beagle ended up losing his seat race at the selection camp and returned to D.C. disappointed, but committed to the sport of rowing. He continued racing with the DC Strokes and competed in several adaptive rowing sprint races.
In July 2011, Beagle received another invitation from Coach Karen Lewis. This one was an invitation to consider moving to Oklahoma City and applying for residency at the OKC-NHPC. After several weeks of consideration and a trip to Oklahoma City for the U.S. Master’s National Championships, Beagle decided to take the plunge and his application for residency was accepted.
In December 2011, Beagle quit his job in D.C., packed up his car and moved to Oklahoma City. He is now in residence with more than 20 high performance rowers at the OKC-NHPC, which includes adaptive rowers and able-bodied rowers.
At the 2008 Beijing Paralympics, rowing was added to the sports lineup for the first time. As designated by FISA, the international rowing federation, there are three categories in Paralympic rowing. Arms only (A), Trunk and Arms (TA) and Legs, Trunk and Arms (LTA).
Beagle is now in heavy training for a chance to compete for the USA at the 2012 London Paralympics. A typical day for Beagle consists of 12 miles of rowing in the Oklahoma River, six hours of work at Chesapeake Energy and another 12 miles on the river in the evening.
Somewhere in the course of a week he also fits in ergometer training, weight training, biking, light running and time in the indoor high propulsion rowing tank.
All the hard training has given Beagle some incredible results. “My time for 1,000 meters has improved by 35 seconds,” says Beagle. “That currently ranks me second in the United States in the LTA category.”
The selection camp for the 2012 London Paralympics will be contested in Charlottesville, Va., beginning on May 25 on the Rivanna River. The United States prequalified a boat for London in the LTA category, which is a four-person mixed sweep boat (4+) at the 2011 World Championships in Bled, Slovenia.
During the course of the two-week selection camp, four men and four women will be selected to compete in seat racing. Over the course of several days, the eight rowers will rotate spots in the four-person sweep boat looking for the combination that will result in the fastest time. The final selection will consist of the fastest two men and two women.
Getting into the mindset of an elite athlete has been an interesting challenge for Beagle. “Sometimes, because of my theater background, I feel like I am training for opening night of a play,” he says. “I have never pushed my body this hard and am looking forward to what challenges lie ahead.”
Regardless of the outcome in Charlottesville next month, Beagle will remain at the OKC-NHPC through the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. “I am enjoying it in Oklahoma City,” says Beagle. “The LGBT community here is quite social and the various cliques seem to be very accepting of each other.”
Everyone here in D.C. will be rooting for Jason as he rows his way to London for a shot at the gold medal.
Information on local rowing is at dcstrokes.org and capitalrowing.org. Information on U.S. Rowing is at okc-nhpc.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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