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Collins remains unsigned 4 months after coming out

Will former Wizard find a new team after announcing he’s gay?

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Gay News, Washington Blade, Sports Illustrated, Jason Collins
Jason Collins, Washington Wizards, NBA, gay news, Washington Blade, Sports Illustrated

Traded to Washington D.C. from Boston in February, with this week’s Sports Illustrated piece, the Wizards’ center Jason Collins becomes the first active openly gay player in history in the four most-followed American professional sports leagues. (Image courtesy of Sports Illustrated)

More than four months after he became the first male athlete who actively plays in a major American sports professional league to come out as gay, former Washington Wizards center Jason Collins has yet to sign with another team.

Both the Pistons and Nets have passed on signing Collins, according to a CBS News report. Collins averaged one point and one rebound per game last year while with the Celtics and Wizards.

NBA training camps begin in late September. ESPN reported that, “An informal survey of league executives at Las Vegas Summer League suggests that Collins, who remains a free agent, stands a good chance to be in uniform on opening night this fall as teams flesh out their rosters with 12th, 13th and 14th men in the weeks leading up to training camp.”

FIND MORE OF THE WASHINGTON BLADE SPORTS ISSUE HERE.

Collins has repeatedly declined the Washington Blade’s requests for an interview since he announced he’s gay in an op-ed that Sports Illustrated published in its May 6 edition, but he has appeared at a number of LGBT-specific events since then. These include attending an LGBT fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee in New York City on May 29 that First Lady Michelle Obama attended and marching in Boston’s annual Pride parade in June with Massachusetts Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy, III, with whom he lived while they attended Stanford University.

Collins, 34, introduced Seattle rappers Macklemore and Ryan Lewis at the MTV Video Music Awards in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Aug. 25 before they performed their song “Same Love” that advocates for marriage rights for same-sex couples.

“I was certain that my world would fall apart if anyone knew,” Collins wrote in his Sports Illustrated op-ed. “Yet when I acknowledged my sexuality I felt whole for the first time.”

NBA Commissioner David Stern, Wizards President Ernie Grunfeld, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers, New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin are among those who applauded Collins after he came out.

“His coming out will have a positive impact on an untold amount of lives,” retired tennis champion Martina Navratilova, who came out in 1981, told the Washington Blade during a June interview. “It’s just adding to the groundswell of acceptance.”

President Obama also reached out to Collins after he came out.

“I told him I couldn’t be prouder of him,” Obama told reporters after Sports Illustrated posted Collins’ op-ed to its website in late April. “One of the extraordinary measures of progress that we’ve seen in this country has been the recognition that the LGBT community deserves full equality, not just partial equality, not just tolerance, but a recognition that they’re fully a part of the American family.”

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New York

Two teens shot steps from Stonewall Inn after NYC Pride parade

One of the victims remains in critical condition

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The Stonewall National Memorial in New York on June 19, 2024. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

On Sunday night, following the annual NYC Pride March, two girls were shot in Sheridan Square, feet away from the historic Stonewall Inn.

According to an NYPD report, the two girls, aged 16 and 17, were shot around 10:15 p.m. as Pride festivities began to wind down. The 16-year-old was struck in the head and, according to police sources, is said to be in critical condition, while the 17-year-old was said to be in stable condition.

The Washington Blade confirmed with the NYPD the details from the police reports and learned no arrests had been made as of noon Monday.

The shooting took place in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, mere feet away from the most famous gay bar in the city — if not the world — the Stonewall Inn. Earlier that day, hundreds of thousands of people marched down Christopher Street to celebrate 55 years of LGBTQ people standing up for their rights.

In June 1969, after police raided the Stonewall Inn, members of the LGBTQ community pushed back, sparking what became known as the Stonewall riots. Over the course of two days, LGBTQ New Yorkers protested the discriminatory policing of queer spaces across the city and mobilized to speak out — and throw bottles if need be — at officers attempting to suppress their existence.

The following year, LGBTQ people returned to the Stonewall Inn and marched through the same streets where queer New Yorkers had been arrested, marking the first “Gay Pride March” in history and declaring that LGBTQ people were not going anywhere.

New York State Assemblywoman Deborah Glick, whose district includes Greenwich Village, took to social media to comment on the shooting.

“After decades of peaceful Pride celebrations — this year gun fire and two people shot near the Stonewall Inn is a reminder that gun violence is everywhere,” the lesbian lawmaker said on X. “Guns are a problem despite the NRA BS.”

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New York

Zohran Mamdani participates in NYC Pride parade

Mayoral candidate has detailed LGBTQ rights platform

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NYC mayoral candidate and New York State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani (Screen capture: NBC News/YouTube)

Zohran Mamdani, the candidate for mayor of New York City who pulled a surprise victory in the primary contest last week, walked in the city’s Pride parade on Sunday.

The Democratic Socialist and New York State Assembly member published photos on social media with New York Attorney General Letitia James, telling followers it was “a joy to march in NYC Pride with the people’s champ” and to “see so many friends on this gorgeous day.”

“Happy Pride NYC,” he wrote, adding a rainbow emoji.

Mamdani’s platform includes a detailed plan for LGBTQ people who “across the United States are facing an increasingly hostile political environment.”

His campaign website explains: “New York City must be a refuge for LGBTQIA+ people, but private institutions in our own city have already started capitulating to Trump’s assault on trans rights.

“Meanwhile, the cost of living crisis confronting working class people across the city hits the LGBTQIA+ community particularly hard, with higher rates of unemployment and homelessness than the rest of the city.”

“The Mamdani administration will protect LGBTQIA+ New Yorkers by expanding and protecting gender-affirming care citywide, making NYC an LGBTQIA+ sanctuary city, and creating the Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs.”

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U.S. Supreme Court

Supreme Court upholds ACA rule that makes PrEP, other preventative care free

Liberal justices joined three conservatives in majority opinion

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The U.S. Supreme Court as composed June 30, 2022, to present. Front row, left to right: Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., and Associate Justice Elena Kagan. Back row, left to right: Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Associate Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, Associate Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Photo Credit: Fred Schilling, the U.S. Supreme Court)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday upheld a portion of the Affordable Care Act requiring private health insurers to cover the cost of preventative care including PrEP, which significantly reduces the risk of transmitting HIV.

Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored the majority opinion in the case, Kennedy v. Braidwood Management. He was joined by two conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, along with the three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown-Jackson.

The court’s decision rejected the plaintiffs’ challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s reliance on the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force to “unilaterally” determine which types of care and services must be covered by payors without cost-sharing.

An independent all-volunteer panel of nationally recognized experts in prevention and primary care, the 16 task force members are selected by the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to serve four-year terms.

They are responsible for evaluating the efficacy of counseling, screenings for diseases like cancer and diabetes, and preventative medicines — like Truvada for PrEP, drugs to reduce heart disease and strokes, and eye ointment for newborns to prevent infections.

Parties bringing the challenge objected especially to the mandatory coverage of PrEP, with some arguing the drugs would “encourage and facilitate homosexual behavior” against their religious beliefs.

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