Arts & Entertainment
Sam inspires college athletes to come out
Despite progress, homophobia persists in locker rooms
Hudson Taylor, founder of Athlete Ally, said Michael Sam has inspired many collegiate athletes to come out. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
A number of collegiate athletes have come out as gay in the months since former University of Missouri defensive end Michael Sam publicly declared his sexual orientation.
Parker Camp, a member of the University of Virginia swim team, began coming out to his family and friends earlier this year as he told Outsports.com, an LGBT sports website. He and four other teammates held a handwritten sign that read “2 of us gay. The other 3 don’t care” as part of an ad campaign promoting diversity.
Derrick Gordon of the University of Massachusetts in April became the first member of a NCAA Division 1 basketball team to come out as gay. Connor Mertens, a kicker for the Willamette University football team in Oregon, in June publicly acknowledged his bisexuality.
Edward “Chip” Sarafin, a backup senior offensive lineman for Arizona State University, earlier this month told Compete, a Phoenix-based sports magazine, that he began coming out to his teammates last year.
“It was really personal to me, and it benefited my peace of mind greatly,” he told Compete.
Hudson Taylor, founder of Athlete Ally, a group that advocates for LGBT athletes, told the Washington Blade during a recent telephone interview he feels Sam has inspired many collegiate athletes.
“[He] has walked in the shoes of every closeted athlete and every closeted athlete is walking in Michael Sam’s shoes,” he said. “As Michael has a successful career and has come out without incident, I think it shows that next generation of athletes that sport is a welcoming environment for them to be themselves.”
Helen Carroll, director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights Sports Project, agreed.
“They can see positive things happening with those people,” said Carroll. “That can even be just a college student coming out, their coming out story and their teammates accept them and their coach is accepting.”
Challenges remain for collegiate athletes who are considering coming out.
Carroll said homophobic comments in the locker room persist and may deter collegiate athletes from publicly disclosing their sexual orientation or gender identity and expression. She also referred to what she described as “old-school coaches” who discourage their players from coming out until they graduate.
“There’s still that out there in a lot of places,” Carroll told the Blade.
The case of former Penn State women’s basketball coach Rene Portland remains among the most high-profile examples of anti-LGBT discrimination in collegiate sports.
A former player, Jennifer Harris, accused Portland in a 2005 lawsuit of having a “no-lesbian” policy and trying to force her to quit the team, even though she is not gay.
Harris also sued then-Penn State Athletics Director Tim Curley, who is among the former university administrators facing charges for allegedly covering up sex-abuse allegations against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.
She reached a confidential settlement with Portland and Curley in 2007.
Penn State later fined Portland $10,000 and ordered her to take a diversity-sensitivity class after the university settled with Harris.
Portland resigned in 2007 after 27 seasons.
“We’re not as likely to see a case like that, but I am sure somewhere across the nation there are more Rene Portland’s out there,” said Carroll.
Other cases have generated headlines over the past year.
Anthony Villarreal, a former track runner at William Jessup University, a Christian university outside of Sacramento, Calif., said school administrators expelled him last year because he is gay. Leah Johnson last month told Outsports.com an assistant coach at the University of Richmond in Virginia told her to break up with her girlfriend, Miah Register, “before she steps foot on this campus” to play for the team.
In spite of these cases and others like them, Carroll and Taylor maintain more collegiate athletes will come out. And they both look to the way the University of Missouri handled Sam’s decision to publicly disclose his sexual orientation as an example of how they feel administrators and coaches should handle it.
“Michael Sam was out for a good period of time before the world knew about it,” Taylor told the Blade. “It seemed like it didn’t matter one bit to his teammates, to his coaches or to the Missouri family. Missouri did a great job and really showed that they are a welcoming environment for LGBT athletes.”
WorldPride 2025 concluded with the WorldPride Street Festival and Closing Concert held along Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. on Sunday, June 8. Performers on the main stage included Doechii, Khalid, Courtney Act, Parker Matthews, 2AM Ricky, Suzie Toot, MkX and Brooke Eden.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
The 2025 WorldPride Parade was held in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, June 7. Laverne Cox and Renée Rapp were the grand marshals.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key and Robert Rapanut)
Theater
A hilarious ‘Twelfth Night’ at Folger full of ‘elegant kink’
Nonbinary actor Alyssa Keegan stars as Duke Orsino
‘Twelfth Night’
Through June 22
Folger Theatre
201 East Capitol St., S.E.
$20-$84
Folger.edu
Nonbinary actor Alyssa Keegan (they/them)loves tapping into the multitudes within.
Currently Keegan plays the melancholic Duke Orsino in Folger Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s romantic comedy “Twelfth Night.” Director Mei Ann Teo describes the production as “sexy, hilarious, and devastating” and full of “elegant kink.”
Washington-based, Keegan enjoys a busy and celebrated career. Her vast biography includes Come From Away at Ford’s Theatre; Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Helen Hayes Award, Best Actress) and Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive, both at Round House Theatre; Diana Son’s Stop Kiss directedby Holly Twyford for No Rules Theatre Company; and Contractions at Studio Theatre, to name just a few.
In addition to acting, Keegan works as a polyamory and ethical non-monogamy life and relationship coach, an area of interest that grew out of personal exploration. For them, coaching seems to work hand in hand with acting.
WASHINGTON BLADE: You’re playing the lovesick Orsino in Twelfth Night. How did that come about?
ALYSSA KEEGAN: The director was looking to cast a group of actors with diverse identities; throughout auditions, there were no constraints regarding anyone’s assigned sex at birth. It was really a free for all.
BLADE: What’s your approach to the fetching, cod-piece clad nobleman?
KEEGAN: Offstage I identify as completely nonbinary; I love riding in this neutral middle space. But I also love cosplay. The ability to do that in the play gives me permission to dive completely into maleness.
So, when I made that decision to play Orsino as a bio male, suddenly the part really cracked open for me. I began looking for clues about his thoughts and opinions about things like his past relationships and his decision not to date older women.
Underneath his mask of bravura and sexuality, and his firmness of feelings, he’s quite lonely and has never really felt loved. It makes sense to me why his love for Olivia is so misguided and why he might fall in love with the Cesario/Viola character.
BLADE: As an actor, do you ever risk taking on the feelings of your characters?
KEEGAN: Prior to my mental health education, yes, and that could be toxic for me. I’ve since learned that the nervous system can’t tell the difference between real emotional distress and a that of a fully embodied character.
So, I created and share the Empowered Performer Project. [a holistic approach to performance that emphasizes the mental and emotional well-being of performing artists]. It utilizes somatic tools that help enormously when stepping into a character.
BLADE: Has changing the way you work affected your performances?
KEEGAN: I think I’m much better now. I used to have nearly debilitating stage fright. I’d spend all day dreading going onstage. I thought that was just part of the job. Now, I’ve learned to talk to my body. Prior to a performance, I can now spend my offstage time calmly gardening, working with my mental health clients, or playing with my kid. I’m just present in my life in a different way.
BLADE: Is Orsino your first time playing a male role?
KEEGAN: No. In fact, the very first time I played a male role was at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Va. I played Hipolito in Thomas Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy.
As Hipolito, I felt utterly male in the moment, so much so that I had audience members see me later after the show and they were surprised that I was female. They thought I was a young guy in the role. There’s something very powerful in that.
BLADE: Do you have a favorite part? Male or female?
KEEGAN: That’s tough but I think it’s Maggie the Cat. I played the hyper-female Maggie in Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof at Round House. In the first act she didn’t stop talking for 51 minutes opposite Gregory Wooddell as Brick who barely had to speak. That lift was probably the heaviest I’ve ever been asked to do in acting.
BLADE: What about Folger’s Twelfth Night might be especially appealing to queer audiences?
KEEGAN: First and foremost is presentation. 99% of the cast identify as queer in some way.
The approach to Shakespeare’s text is one of the most bold and playful that I have ever seen. It’s unabashedly queer. The actors are here to celebrate and be loud and colorful and to advocate. It’s a powerful production, especially to do so close to the Capitol building, and that’s not lost on any of us.
WorldPride recap: Festival, parade, fireworks, and Doechii
World Bank resumes lending to Uganda
PHOTOS: WorldPride Street Festival and Closing Concert
Baltimore Trans Pride to take place Saturday
PHOTOS: WorldPride Parade
PHOTOS: WorldPride Boat Parade
Activists rally for Andry Hernández Romero in front of Supreme Court
The best U.S. cities for LGBTQ homebuyers in 2025
A hilarious ‘Twelfth Night’ at Folger full of ‘elegant kink’
