Connect with us

News

Louganis: Russian Open Games marred by disruptions

Threats, smoke bomb, police target LGBT event

Published

on

Gay News, Washington Blade, Greg Louganis
Gay News, Washington Blade, Greg Louganis

Retired Olympian Greg Louganis last December took part in a Russia briefing on Capitol Hill. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

Retired Olympic diver Greg Louganis is among those who participated in the Russian Open Games that ended in Moscow on Sunday.

Louganis, who competed in a table tennis tournament during the five-day event that drew more than 300 LGBT athletes from Russia and other countries that include the U.S. and Sweden, arrived in the Russian capital early last week after he received a last-minute visa.

He left Moscow on Feb. 28.

The gay retired Olympian who won two gold medals during the 1998 Summer Olympics in Seoul and in the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles participated in a Feb. 27 press conference at a Moscow gay nightclub that opened the Russian Open Games. A bomb threat forced him and organizers to speak with reporters outside in the building’s parking lot.

The Washington Post reported the U.S. Embassy hosted a basketball game between participants and diplomats on Sunday after a smoke bomb disrupted a tournament two days earlier.

Louganis, who learned he was living with HIV six months before competing in Seoul, told the Blade police escorted him and more than 30 other Russian Open Games participants out of an ice rink on Feb. 27 after someone reported a group of “strange people” had arrived. He said they had simply gone to the rink for what he described as a “group workshop” about “teaching us some skating skills.”

“They made it clear we were not welcome,” said Louganis. “Just the looks of disdain as we were escorted off the premises was just really concerning.”

Louganis told the Blade he was sending e-mails from a coffee shop across the street from the building where the Russian LGBT Network was holding a panel after the ice rink incident when Konstantin Yablotskiy of the Russian LGBT Sport Federation, which organized the Russian Open Games, said the event had been interrupted. He said Yablotskiy told him somebody suddenly turned off the lights and told them the venue would have to close if they didn’t leave.

Louganis said Yablotskiy and Elvina Yuvakaeva of the Russian LGBT Sport Federation told only one person about venues they had secured for various competitions – and this person escorted participants to them after they met at a Metro station. Louganis told the Blade that Yablotskiy told him to take precautions that included not saying anything specific during telephone conversations because he was sure “others were listening.”

“It was a very interesting environment,” said Louganis, noting he had last been to Moscow more than a decade before the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. “It kind of reminded me of that; that everything was watched, was observed, scrutinized.”

The Russian Open Games took place a few days after the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi ended.

The Kremlin’s LGBT rights record that includes a 2013 law banning gay propaganda to minors overshadowed the Sochi games. Organizers of the Russian Open Games did not allow anyone under 18 to participate – they also included a disclaimer on its website that read “the information on this site is intended only for the use of those aged 18 and over.”

St. Petersburg Legislative Assemblyman Vitaly Milonov, who spearheaded his city’s gay propaganda ban that inspired the law Russian President Vladimir Putin signed last June, denounced the Russian Open Games. The lawmaker also urged Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin to cancel the event.

Yuvakaeva last week said four venues that had initially agreed to host the games abruptly cancelled their agreements. The hotel where the Russian LGBT Network had planned to hold its forum also cancelled the scheduled event.

Louganis told the Blade he had not heard about the 10 LGBT rights advocates who were arrested near Moscow’s Red Square on Feb. 7 as they tried to sing the Russian national anthem while holding rainbow flags before the Sochi opening ceremony. He said a gay couple he met in the Russian capital told him about the arrests – and the officers who reportedly beat and threatened to sexually assault the activists while inside a local police station.

St. Petersburg police on Feb. 7 arrested Anastasia Smirnova and three other LGBT rights advocates as they tried to march with a banner in support of the campaign to add sexual orientation to the Olympic charter’s non-discrimination clause.

“I really wanted to be a participant [in the Russian Open Games] just to get an objective view rather than the propagandized vision of what it was in Sochi,” Louganis told the Blade, discussing Russia’s LGBT rights record. “Sochi I heard was wonderful and everybody was bragging and the media was over-reacting and all of this. You don’t know until you’re there.”

Louganis was also in Moscow as Russian troops prepared to take control of Ukraine’s Crimea region amid outrage from the U.S. and Europe.

The Kremlin on Monday reportedly issued an ultimatum that demanded the surrender of the crews of two Ukrainian warships on the predominantly Russian-speaking peninsula where Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is based. Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to arrive in the Ukrainian capital on Tuesday as tension between Washington and Moscow continues to escalate after the country’s Kremlin-backed president went into hiding following the deaths of dozens of anti-government protesters in Kiev.

“We were aware of what was going on with the borders being enforced,” said Louganis. “There was talk of invasion. There was this thing going on, but we were just focused on the event… with every turn we had to adjust and adjust and adjust. We were constantly trying to adjust to the immediate present and trying to make the Open Games as successful as we possibly could.”

Louganis added he was repeatedly impressed with the games’ organizers’ resilience against efforts to disrupt events.

“It was very impressive,” he told the Blade. “It was also very eye-opening for me from my personal experience.”

Advertisement
FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM
SIGN UP FOR E-BLAST

World Pride 2025

Pabllo Vittar to perform at WorldPride

Brazilian drag queen, singer, joined Madonna on stage in 2024 Rio concert

Published

on

Pabllo Vittar (Screen capture via Pabllo Vittar/YouTube)

A Brazilian drag queen and singer who performed with Madonna at her 2024 concert on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach will perform at WorldPride.

The Capital Pride Alliance on Thursday announced Pabllo Vittar will perform on the Main Stage of the main party that will take place on June 7 at DCBX (1235 W St., N.E.) in Northeast D.C.

Vittar and Anitta, a Brazilian pop star who is bisexual, on May 4, 2024, joined Madonna on stage at her free concert, which was the last one of her Celebration Tour. Authorities estimated 1.6 million people attended.

Continue Reading

Federal Government

RFK Jr.’s HHS report pushes therapy, not medical interventions, for trans youth

‘Discredited junk science’ — GLAAD

Published

on

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

A 409-page report released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services challenges the ethics of medical interventions for youth experiencing gender dysphoria, the treatments that are often collectively called gender-affirming care, instead advocating for psychotherapy alone.

The document comes in response to President Donald Trump’s executive order barring the federal government from supporting gender transitions for anyone younger than 19.

“Our duty is to protect our nation’s children — not expose them to unproven and irreversible medical interventions,” National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said in a statement. “We must follow the gold standard of science, not activist agendas.”

While the report does not constitute clinical guidance, its findings nevertheless conflict with not just the recommendations of LGBTQ advocacy groups but also those issued by organizations with relevant expertise in science and medicine.

The American Medical Association, for instance, notes that “empirical evidence has demonstrated that trans and non-binary gender identities are normal variations of human identity and expression.”

Gender-affirming care for transgender youth under standards widely used in the U.S. includes supportive talk therapy along with — in some but not all cases — puberty blockers or hormone treatment.

“The suggestion that someone’s authentic self and who they are can be ‘changed’ is discredited junk science,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. “This so-called guidance is grossly misleading and in direct contrast to the recommendation of every leading health authority in the world. This report amounts to nothing more than forcing the same discredited idea of conversion therapy that ripped families apart and harmed gay, lesbian, and bisexual young people for decades.”

GLAAD further notes that the “government has not released the names of those involved in consulting or authoring this report.”

Janelle Perez, executive director of LPAC, said, “For decades, every major medical association–including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics–have affirmed that medical care is the only safe and effective treatment for transgender youth experiencing gender dysphoria.

“This report is simply promoting conversion therapy by a different name – and the American people know better. We know that conversion therapy isn’t actually therapy – it isolates and harms kids, scapegoats parents, and divides families through blame and rejection. These tactics have been used against gay kids for decades, and now the same people want to use them against transgender youth and their families.

“The end result here will be a devastating denial of essential health care for transgender youth, replaced by a dangerous practice that every major U.S. medical and mental health association agree promotes anxiety, depression, and increased risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts.

“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice, and no amount of pressure can force someone to change who they are. We also know that 98% of people who receive transition-related health care continue to receive that health care throughout their lifetime. Trans health care is health care.”

“Today’s report seeks to erase decades of research and learning, replacing it with propaganda. The claims in today’s report would rip health care away from kids and take decision-making out of the hands of parents,” said Shannon Minter, legal director of NCLR. “It promotes the same kind of conversion therapy long used to shame LGBTQ+ people into hating themselves for being unable to change something they can’t change.”

“Like being gay or lesbian, being transgender is not a choice—it’s rooted in biology and genetics,” Minter said. “No amount or talk or pressure will change that.” 

Human Rights Campaign Chief of Staff Jay Brown released a statement: “Trans people are who we are. We’re born this way. And we deserve to live our best lives and have a fair shot and equal opportunity at living a good life.

“This report misrepresents the science that has led all mainstream American medical and mental health professionals to declare healthcare for transgender youth to be best practice and instead follows a script predetermined not by experts but by Sec. Kennedy and anti-equality politicians.”




Continue Reading

The White House

Trump nominates Mike Waltz to become next UN ambassador

Former Fla. congressman had been national security advisor

Published

on

U.N. headquarters in New York (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

President Donald Trump on Thursday announced he will nominate Mike Waltz to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

Waltz, a former Florida congressman, had been the national security advisor.

Trump announced the nomination amid reports that Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, were going to leave the administration after Waltz in March added a journalist to a Signal chat in which he, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and other officials discussed plans to attack Houthi rebels in Yemen.

“I am pleased to announce that I will be nominating Mike Waltz to be the next United States ambassador to the United Nations,” said Trump in a Truth Social post that announced Waltz’s nomination. “From his time in uniform on the battlefield, in Congress and, as my National Security Advisor, Mike Waltz has worked hard to put our nation’s Interests first. I know he will do the same in his new role.”

Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio will serve as interim national security advisor, “while continuing his strong leadership at the State Department.”

“Together, we will continue to fight tirelessly to make America, and the world, safe again,” said Trump.

Trump shortly after his election nominated U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Trump in March withdrew her nomination in order to ensure Republicans maintained their narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Continue Reading
Advertisement World Pride Guide
Advertisement
Advertisement

Sign Up for Weekly E-Blast

Follow Us @washblade

Advertisement

Popular