Sports
In the driver’s seat
Gay NASCAR vets hope to return to racing
Evan Darling (left) and Stephen Rhodes say NASCAR is not as leery of gays as one might suspect. (Photos courtesy of Darling and Rhodes)
To the casual observer, NASCAR may seem conservative, but the sport has been largely welcoming to LGBT professionals in the industry. The main hurdle for drivers of any demographic, including some openly gay drivers, is finding sponsors.
Michael Myers, founder of Queers4Gears, a website aimed at gay and lesbian NASCAR fans, sees NASCAR as “warm and inclusive” of the LGBT community. He notes that Mathew Pattison, a prominent official in the Timing and Scoring Department, is openly gay and feels accepted by NASCAR. On his website, Myers wrote in 2011 about an incident in which a crew member with Red Bull Racing (now Infiniti Red Bull Racing), Tweeted an inappropriate comment about gay people. Within two days, the crew member was fired.
Stephen Rhodes, an out driver, is currently working toward returning to the NASCAR Camping World Track Series for the 2014 season. Rhodes took a hiatus in 2010 to help his partner open a cafe.
FIND MORE OF THE WASHINGTON BLADE SPORTS ISSUE HERE.
Rhodes’ sexuality was common knowledge in the garage for the majority of his career and had little impact. He did, however, experience a single negative experience related to his sexuality, but it is an anomaly he chooses not to dwell on.
“Having 15 years in this business and having that one experience isn’t going to hold me back,” he said, “and I don’t want to entertain and bring it back up because it is in the past.”
“There are at least 77 million NASCAR fans,” said Rhodes. “And if I get one percent of them and the LGBT community behind them, I’ll have a huge fan base.”
His role in the sport could help pave the way for future out drivers. Rhodes sees himself as, “following in Danica [Patrick]’s footsteps … I look forward to potentially being a spokesperson in the business for [my] community and trying to create some equality.”
The NASCAR Diversity Affairs department manages a Driver Development Program, which aids the careers of female and minority drivers. The mission statement does not include LGBT drivers. Representatives from Diversity Affairs were unavailable for comment.
Recently, Rhodes has spent time putting together media packages for sponsors and building his name in the NASCAR community in anticipation of the 2014 season.
He is encouraged by the leverage his sexual orientation may provide, saying, “by being a driver that happens to be gay and approaching LGBT-supportive corporations, I think it’s going to pique a little interest and set me apart from many other drivers that are out there.”
Like Rhodes, Evan Darling, an openly gay Grand-Am Road Racing driver, noticed positive reactions from those around him when he came out in 2007. Since then, however, he has lost sponsors, though he points to the economic crash of 2008 as a major factor.
Darling has not raced professionally for a year and is seeking sponsors to re-enter professional driving.
“The demographic that I race in front of is very conservative,” Darling said. “And all those people have kids that, whatever percentage are LGBT, get to see someone doing something positive in their community, in their little world. It could really make a big difference.
“It’s a very expensive sport,” Darling said. “I have to find … a good company that wants to get in front of a new demographic, a demographic they don’t generally market to.”
Myers echoed his sentiments, saying, “The finding of sponsors these days for racers is difficult whether you’re Dale Earnhardt Jr., Evan Darling, Justin Mullikin (an out driver in the NASCAR Grand National Sportsman division), or anyone in these cash-strapped times. If a person could drive a racecar and win, then there’s going to be an owner and a sponsor out there that are going to want to be a part of that.”
Each year, Myers crosschecks NASCAR sponsors with the Human Rights Campaign Corporate Equality Index. Most recently, he found that many companies earned a perfect score of 100, including Toyota, Ford, Best Buy, Budweiser and Coca-Cola.
According to Myers, the companies currently sponsoring NASCAR earned an average score of 80 from HRC. He notes that ExxonMobil brought down the average. In 2013, the company earned a rating of -25.
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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Calendar: February 13-19
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State Department5 days agoFOIA lawsuit filed against State Department for PEPFAR records
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Opinions5 days ago
Trans sports bans rooted in eugenics
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New York5 days ago
Pride flag raised at Stonewall after National Park Service took it down
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India5 days ago
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