Sports
Russian rendezvous
Athlete Ally founder sees opportunity for LGBT awareness at Olympics
Hudson Taylor started his LGBT advocacy work during his college wrestling career. He eventually started blogging about homophobia in sports and became a vocal advocate for gay rights. (Photo courtesy Athlete Ally)
Hudson Taylor, founder of Athlete Ally, has been granted a visa for travel to Russia where he intends to raise awareness for LGBT rights during the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, which will be held from Feb. 7-23.
Athlete Ally has partnered with the Principle 6 campaign, which uses the language of the Olympic Charter to allow athletes and fans to speak out against discrimination during the Sochi Games without violating Russian anti-gay laws or the Olympic ban on political speech.
Principle Six is based on a convention of the IOC charter that states that any form of discrimination on the basis of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with the Olympic movement.
On Jan. 21, the first Sochi-related anti-gay arrest occurred when a Russian gay rights advocate waved a rainbow flag during the Olympic Torch relay.
The Blade caught up with Hudson Taylor, a straight ally, wrestling champion and coach (at Columbia University), before he departs for Russia.
WASHINGTON BLADE: What was the thought process behind planning a trip to Sochi?
HUDSON TAYLOR: I think Sochi gives us an enormous opportunity to raise awareness about what’s going on in Russia. And, what better way to do that than to be actually on the ground and ensure that this is a conversation that is taking place. I talked to the Athlete Ally board and weighed the risk and reward of going and I think we all agreed that the importance of the moment made it such that I needed to go.
BLADE: With all the vague guidance and broad interpretations coming from Russia, where is the line between raising awareness and staging a protest?
TAYLOR: For the Principle Six campaign we thought long and hard about the appropriate line. We are trying to make sure that athletes know that they can show support for Principle Six or the Olympic Charter. This is a way to show the world that discrimination has no place in sports and that the Olympic charter is opposed to what is going on in Russia. As long as we stay true to what the Olympic movement and the Olympic values are all about, we shouldn’t violate Russian law and we shouldn’t put athletes in a position to violate the Olympic Charter.
BLADE: Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter is written for the specific purpose of eliminating advertising, demonstrations and propaganda from the stadiums, venues and other competition areas. Since the athletes won’t be able to wear Principle 6 clothing at their venues, what is the plan for exposure of the clothing line?
TAYLOR: Where we have an opening to raise awareness is on how athletes speak out across social media. My hope is to engage athletes to wear Principle 6 clothing or to tweet photos of the language of Principle 6 out to their fans. It’s a great opportunity because social media is technically not an Olympic venue and it can be used to reach every corner of the world.
BLADE: American Apparel and Idea Brand were behind the manufacturing and branding of the Principle 6 clothing line. Where are the profits being donated?
TAYLOR: All of the profits will be donated to All Out and Athlete Ally. We in turn will be donating the proceeds to Russian-based LGBT organizations.
BLADE: What about the new hand gesture that has been popping up on social media? It consists of the peace sign on one hand and laying the pointer finger of the opposite hand on top of it to form a triangle. Will that be considered propaganda?
TAYLOR: The more opportunities an athlete has to speak out, the better. I think the hand gesture would definitely be construed as propaganda if it is used in the venues or on the medal stands. However, it is another viable and alternative way to speak out by posting it on social media.
BLADE: What will your itinerary consist of during your trip to Sochi?
TAYLOR: I will be in Sochi from Feb. 3-9 and I imagine that most of it will consist of reporting and commentating within the Olympic venues. I will probably take a day to visit one of the protest zones just to see what is going on and to ensure that I can report on it.
BLADE: The visa process for the Sochi Olympics is incredibly stringent. Were you concerned about your visa being approved?
TAYLOR: At first, when the multiple layers of the visa process were announced by the Embassy of the Russian Federation, there was certainly a cause for concern. Now that some security risks have appeared I think people are OK with the hoops and hurdles you have to go through to be on the ground in Sochi.
BLADE: Have the recent terrorist video threats changed anything for you in terms of keeping yourself safe in Sochi?
TAYLOR: In everything I will be doing in Sochi, there will be a risk and reward calculation. We will figure out a way not to expose myself or the organization to any unnecessary risks while giving the appropriate attention to the human rights issues in Russia and how it is affecting the LGBT community there.
BLADE: What about the comments made by Putin linking the gay community to pedophilia? Do you think those comments will make the gay rights advocates more aggressive in their protests?
TAYLOR: For advocates who are passionate about these issues, it will certainly stoke a fire in them, especially in an Olympic situation where athletes under the age of 18 will be competing and who may in fact be LGBT. Putin’s comments only exacerbate or incentivize people to speak out against it. The stark contrast of how Putin sees the LGBT community versus how the rest of the world sees them will be very evident during the Sochi Games.
BLADE: How hard will you be trying to get into the NBC Studios to chat with Bob Costas?
TAYLOR: Very hard (laughing). When you look at what athletes have the ability to do in terms of raising awareness, one area is social media and the other is the responses they give to the journalists who ask the questions. We will make sure that we are aware of all the journalists on the ground and have their contact information so that we can make ourselves available should they have an interest in covering this topic.
BLADE: Will you be attending any of the competitions?
TAYLOR: I will be attending the opening ceremonies but do not plan on buying any tickets to the sporting venues. While I am on the ground in Sochi, it will be important to keep an eye out for the statements and actions that are happening in cities around the world. I think a lot of people will be demonstrating and coming together to support the LGBT community. It will be pretty amazing to watch.
BLADE: Good luck Hudson. Be safe.
Sports
Brittney Griner, wife expecting first child
WNBA star released from Russian gulag in December 2022
One year after returning to the WNBA after her release from a Russian gulag and declaring, “I’m never playing overseas again,” Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner and her wife announced they have something even bigger coming up this summer.
Cherelle, 31, and Brittney, 33, are expecting their first child in July. The couple shared the news with their 715,000 followers on Instagram.
“Can’t believe we’re less than three months away from meeting our favorite human being,” the caption read, with the hashtag, #BabyGrinerComingSoon and #July2024.
Griner returned to the U.S. in December 2022 in a prisoner swap, more than nine months after being arrested in Moscow for possession of vape cartridges containing prescription cannabis.
In April 2023, at her first news conference following her release, the two-time Olympic gold medalist made only one exception to her vow to never play overseas again: To return to the Summer Olympic Games, which will be played in Paris starting in July, the same month “Baby Griner” is due. “The only time I would want to would be to represent the USA,” she said last year.
Given that the unrestricted free agent is on the roster of both Team USA and her WNBA team, it’s not immediately clear where Griner will be when their first child arrives.
The Griners purchased their “forever home” in Phoenix just last year.
“Phoenix is home,” Griner said at the Mercury’s end-of-season media day, according to ESPN. “Me and my wife literally just got a place. This is it.”
As the Los Angeles Blade reported last December, Griner is working with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts — like Griner, a married lesbian — on an ESPN television documentary as well as a television series for ABC about her life story. Cherelle is executive producer of these projects.
Next month, Griner’s tell-all memoir of her Russian incarceration will be published by Penguin Random House. It’s titled “Coming Home” and the hardcover hits bookstores on May 7.
Sports
Applause and criticism for Staley’s trans-inclusive stance
South Carolina Gamecocks women’s coach made comments on Sunday
If not for a conservative transphobic blogger, this moment should be a celebration of NCAA women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley and the women of the South Carolina Gamecocks.
On Sunday, they concluded their undefeated season with a decisive win and a championship title. But when Staley faced reporters before that big game, Outkick’s Dan Zakheske asked her an irrelevant, clickbait question about transgender women in sports, referring to them as “biological males.”
Staley could have ignored the question, or stated she had no opinion, but instead the legendary coach offered a crystal clear endorsement of trans women competing in women’s sports, something outlawed in her home state of South Carolina for girls in kindergarten through college.
“I’m of the opinion,” said Staley, “If you’re a woman, you should play. If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports or vice versa, you should be able to play. That’s my opinion.”
Zakheske clearly wasn’t satisfied with that declaration of allyship and Staley swiftly cut him off.
“You want me to go deeper?” she asked.
“Do you think transgender women should be able to participate,” he started to say, when the coach stole the ball and took it downtown on a fastbreak. “That’s the question you want to ask? I’ll give you that. Yes. Yes. So, now the barnstormer people are going to flood my timeline and be a distraction to me on one of the biggest days of our game, and I’m okay with that. I really am.”
Staley is herself a Hall of Fame player a leading voice for diversity.
Reaction to her comments were swift, from LGBTQ rights organizations, athletes and inclusion opponents.
“Coach Staley simply spoke the truth that trans women are women and should play if they want,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, in a post on Instagram. “All of us can take a page from Coach Staley’s playbook as a sports leader and as a person of high integrity guided by faith, compassion and common sense.”
A White House pool reporter revealed President Joe Biden called Staley Sunday evening to congratulate her and the Gamecocks on their championship win. But it’s not clear if she and the president, an outspoken supporter of trans rights, discussed her remarks on trans athletes.
A number of Black leaders in the LGBTQ movement applauded Staley for taking a stand.
“Coach Staley has always been a trailblazer, but she’s also shown that true leadership is about advancing justice and equality for everyone,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson. “By expressing her full-throated support for transgender athletes’ inclusion in sports, she’s sending an important message — our shared humanity matters.
“Coach Staley showed courage and vulnerability, in choosing to answer the question and make a powerful statement of support for trans people on one of the biggest days and biggest stages in sports history,” said Kierra Johnson, executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, in a statement. “Not only does that make her a leader we can all aspire to like, it makes her a class act. She has etched her legacy in the history books with her play, her coaching, her heart and her smarts.”
In congratulating Staley on her championship title victory, Dr. David J. Johns, the CEO and executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, also commended her for “her unwavering advocacy and support for transgender people in sports.”
“In a time when transgender athetes face unjust scrutiny, discrimination and exclusion from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, her courage to speak truth to power and in support of inclusion and fairness sets a powerful example for us all, and is a testament to her integrity and compassion.”
The NBJC leader was referring to Monday’s announcement by the NAIA, the governing body of athletic programs at small colleges nationwide, voting 20-0 to essentially ban trans women from competing with other women beginning Aug. 1, as ESPN reported.
“It is a shocking and devastating development that the NAIA, an organization that has done so much to open doors, is now slamming those doors shut on transgender athletes,” said Sasha Buchert, Lambda Legal’s senior attorney and director of the organization’s nonbinary and trans rights project.
“Instead of standing up in support of transgender young people, the NAIA has simply turned its back on them — permanently depriving them of the benefits of competition. Would that they had the courage of victorious University of South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley, who didn’t miss a beat in clarifying that transgender women should be able to play.”
However, praise for Staley’s stance was not universal.
Riley Gaines, failed former college swimmer and paid shill for the anti-inclusion organization, Independent Women’s Forum, called Staley “entirely incompetent or a sell-out” on Fox News. “Personally, I don’t think she believes what she said.”
Gaines has turned her fifth-place tie with out trans NCAA champion Lia Thomas into a career as a crusader against inclusion and a former advisor to the presidential campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Val Whiting, a former Stanford University and professional women’s basketball player, tweeted her strong disagreement with Staley. “A lot of my basketball sisters feel differently but trans women do not belong in women’s sports. It’s not fair nor safe for biological women. There has to be another solution for trans women to be able to compete athletically besides having them compete against biological women.”
A lot of my basketball sisters feel differently but trans women do not belong in women’s sports. It’s not fair nor safe for biological women. There has to be another solution for trans women to be able to compete athletically besides having them compete against biological women.
— Val Whiting (@iamcoachval) April 7, 2024
Zaksheske’s Outkick colleague, anti-trans pundit David Hookstead, also went all-in with a transphobic post.
“Dawn Staley says she supports men who identify as women competing against real women in sports. Her view could literally destroy women’s basketball forever. Why won’t more people stand up for women?”
Dawn Staley says she supports men who identify as women competing against real women in sports.
— David Hookstead (@dhookstead) April 6, 2024
Her view could literally destroy women’s basketball forever.
Why won’t more people stand up for women? pic.twitter.com/2A59KTqvHb
Hookstead then boasted that Staley blocked his account.
Republican South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace retweeted Zaksheske’s account of his interaction with Staley, calling her support of trans athletes “absolute lunacy.” That in turn won praise from Caitlyn Jenner, who retweeted Whiting and posted her thanks to Mace, along with this comment: “There is nothing complicated about this issue!”
What is complicated is that Jenner has never explained why she has competed with cisgender women in golf ever since her transition almost a decade ago.
You’re a hypocrite. pic.twitter.com/42DKwA9jmF
— Art Candee 🍿🥤 (@ArtCandee) April 7, 2024
Caitlyn Jenner flew from Malibu to New York this week to join her fellow Republicans in their nationwide quest to keep transgender girls and women from competing in sports with other women.
“Let’s stop it now while we can,” said the Olympic gold medalist, at a news conference carried live by Fox News Channel.
Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman organized the event so that Jenner could speak in support of his February executive order banning trans athletes at more than 100 county-owned facilities.
“Trans women are competing against women, taking valuable opportunities for the long-protected class under Title IX and causing physical harm,” said Jenner without providing supportive evidence of her claim. Jenner said the ban would defeat “the woke agenda.”
Her comments drew praise from former NCAA swimmer and paid shill Riley Gaines, who represents the Independent Women’s Forum and has also worked with the failed presidential campaign of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on his anti-trans athlete platform.
We stand with Executive Blakeman as he faces shameful retaliation from @TishJames for merely protecting sports on the basis of sex
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) March 18, 2024
Thanks to you both, @Caitlyn_Jenner @NassauExec !!👏🏼 https://t.co/vAsWfayI7l
“If the left wants to fight this battle on this hill, it’s a losing battle,” said Jenner. “We will win the battle.” She claimed she spoke on behalf of women and girls, contradicting her past statements in support of trans girls competing according to their gender identity and despite the fact she herself still competes in women’s sports.
Shortly after the ban was announced last month, New York State Attorney General Letitia James and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, both Democrats, denounced it and accused Blakeman of “bullying trans kids.”
James called the order “transphobic and deeply dangerous,” and argued that it violates the state’s anti-discrimination laws. The state attorney general challenged it in court March 1 with a “cease and desist letter,” demanding that Blakeman rescind the order, saying it subjects women’s and girls’ sports teams to “invasive questioning.”
As the Los Angeles Blade reported, Blakeman’s legal team countered with its own lawsuit on March 5, claiming her cease and desist letter violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
“Not only was the executive order legal, but we had an obligation to defend it,” Blakeman said Monday.
The order has also been challenged by the New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed suit last week on behalf of a women’s roller derby league based in Nassau County that welcomes trans women and would be barred from using the county’s facilities by Blakeman’s executive order.
Just days before the Long Island news conference, Jenner joined Olympian Sharron Davies, who also campaigns against trans inclusion in sports, for an conversation with a British newspaper, the Telegraph, which has been outspoken against trans inclusion.
They recalled that in their day, tests to determine sex were mandatory in order to compete, and Jenner said she has been “pushing” for sex tests to return to sports, decades after sports organizations around the world abandoned the practice because they were unreliable. “If they continue down this road, it will be pretty much the end of women’s sport as we know it.”
“I can still hit a golf ball 280 yards,” Jenner continued, not mentioning she plays from the ladies’ tee. She did however opine about not being “a real woman,” acknowledging that many trans women disagree with her view.
“They keep saying, ‘Oh, I’m a real woman, I’m a real woman,’ and I’m going, ‘No, you’re not,’” said Jenner. “I will use your preferred pronouns, I will treat you as a female, you can run and dress and do whatever you want, I have nothing against that, it’s fine, but biologically you’re still male.”
She added: “Let me explain — I am biologically male, OK? I’m XY. There’s nothing I can do to change that. If you believe in gender dysphoria, and I think most people do realize it’s not a disease, it’s a mental condition, just like some people are left-handed and some people are right-handed, it’s kind of the way you’re born and I’ve dealt with it my entire life.“
“I consider myself a trans person, I am still genetically male, I changed all of my ID right down to my birth certificate so technically yes, I am female, but on the other hand I know I’m not.”
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