Sports
Long road back
Autobiography tells of journey back from throes of addiction
Joe Putignano found redemption in writing and performing. (Photo by Thomas Synnamon)
There are movements, sounds and smells in sports that become an important part of the ritual of each particular sport and they often become a comforting factor for the athlete.
It could be the lacing of your cleats on the soccer field, the pop of the tennis ball coming off your racquet or the smell of chlorine when you walk into a pool.
For gymnast Joe Putignano, it was the feel of the mats hitting his feet during tumbling passes, the squeaking of his hands as he did giant swings on the high bar and the smell of chalk when he prepped for a routine.
Eventually his rituals changed and he found his comfort from the look of a tarnished spoon, the sound of rubber tubing and the smell of rubbing alcohol. Putignano was no longer a gymnast, he was a heroin addict.
The rituals of his once athletic lifestyle were replaced by a much darker way of living.
“You know those days when you don’t want to go to the gym, but you still go?” Putignano says. “There were days when I didn’t want to shoot up, but I did anyway.”
Putignano grew up in the Boston area and showed promise as a gymnast early on in his career. He was twice invited to the Olympic training facility in Colorado Springs and won several state and regional competitions while competing on the six apparatus in men’s gymnastics.
With the pressure mounting in his late teens from his sport and his sexual identity, Putignano fell into the rave culture of the 1990s and all the drugs that came with it.
“In gymnastics, everyone sees your imperfections,” Putignano says. “I didn’t want to be judged anymore.”
Over the course of the next 10 years he bounced between his heroin addiction, rehab attempts, employment, homelessness and more rehab attempts. He was twice declared clinically dead from overdoses.
While he was working at the New York Times he was going home at lunch, shooting up and coming back to work. They sent him to what he calls his final rehab where he met a counselor who urged him to get back to gymnastics.
“I kept trying to get clean because I didn’t want to give up on myself. I think that was ingrained in me because of sports,” Putignano says. “I started doing handstands and pushups and completely changed what I was doing. Within 90 days, the determination came back.”
Putignano Googled contortionists and found a group of acrobats in New York and discovered that he could use his talents to earn a living. He was still rediscovering his skills when he performed in Broadway Bares and ended up relapsing a few more times.
“Getting back into shape was harder than I expected,” he says. “I had to relearn everything.”
He eventually landed a spot dancing, riding unicycle and dancing on stilts in Twyla Tharp’s “The Times They Are a Changin” which ran on Broadway for two years. The show was cancelled and he relapsed during the last week but realized he didn’t like being high anymore.
He jumped right back into performing at the Metropolitan Opera House and met the creative director of Cirque Du Soleil’s “KA” and “Totem,” Robert Lepage, who asked him to embody the character of Crystal Man which Putignano portrayed for three years starting in 2009 on the “Totem” tour.
Crystal Man represented spiritual evolution and change and Putignano refers to those three years with Cirque as “my beautiful hell.”
“There I was, surrounded by the best athletes in the world and I didn’t even audition for the job,” he says. “I worked harder at my craft and got stronger because I felt I had to prove that I belonged in an athletic acrobatic career.”
During his time on Broadway in the Tharp show, Putignano began putting his journey down on paper and during the “Totem” tour with Cirque, he wrote the entire time.
“We did 10 shows a week and I could be found on the days off writing in a coffee shop, while the other athletes were off sightseeing,” he says.
The resulting book, “Acrobaddict,” offers a look at the similar qualities that are possessed by athletes and addicts. Putignano hopes his journey can offer hope to others with an addiction.
According to the 2012 D.C. Youth Risk Behavior Study, LGBT youth in D.C. are more likely than their heterosexual peers to report illegal drug use including meth (23.7 vs. 2.6 percent) and heroin (18.1 vs. 2.7 percent).
In the D.C. metro area, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring recently pointed to studies that indicate fatal heroin overdoses in the general population of Northern Virginia increased 164 percent from 2011 to 2013.
Putignano is currently in another type of recovery. He’s recovering from surgeries to repair a torn rotator cuff in both shoulders and looming on the horizon are surgeries to repair a torn stomach muscle and damage to his ankle.
Because of his addiction issues, the rehabbing process is being done without painkillers. Along with his physical therapy and weightlifting, he is using nerve blockers, Tylenol, acupuncture and Neurontin to keep the pain under control.
The story of Putignano’s surgeries without painkillers will be told in an upcoming video by Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN. At this time it’s unclear whether Putignano’s career as an acrobat and contortionist is over.
For now, he’s writing a nonfiction book about the devil, taking classes toward becoming a physician’s assistant and doing some modeling work.
At 37, he has been clean for seven years.
“Athletics make me happy and movement gives me joy,” Putignano says. “I can’t wait to ride a bike again.”
Sports
English soccer bans transgender women from women’s teams
British Supreme Court last month ruled legal definition of woman limited to ‘biological women’
The organization that governs English soccer on Thursday announced it will no longer allow transgender women to play on women’s teams.
The British Supreme Court on April 16 ruled the legal definition of a woman is limited to “biological women” and does not include trans women. The Football Association’s announcement, which cites the ruling, notes its new policy will take effect on June 1.
“As the governing body of the national sport, our role is to make football accessible to as many people as possible, operating within the law and international football policy defined by UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) and FIFA,” said the Football Association in a statement that announced the policy change. “Our current policy, which allows transgender women to participate in the women’s game, was based on this principle and supported by expert legal advice.”
“This is a complex subject, and our position has always been that if there was a material change in law, science, or the operation of the policy in grassroots football then we would review it and change it if necessary,” added the Football Association.
The Football Association also acknowledged the new policy “will be difficult for people who simply want to play the game they love in the gender by which they identify.”
“We are contacting the registered transgender women currently playing to explain the changes and how they can continue to stay involved in the game,” it said.
The Football Association told the BBC there were “fewer than 30 transgender women registered among millions of amateur players” and there are “no registered transgender women in the professional game” in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
The Scottish Football Association, which governs soccer in Scotland, is expected to also ban trans women from women’s teams.
FIFA has announced Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 World Cup, despite concerns over its human rights record that includes the death penalty for homosexuality.
The Associated Press reported FIFA confirmed the decision on Dec. 18. The AP noted Saudi Arabia is the only country that bid to host the 2034 World Cup.
“This is a historic moment for Saudi Arabia and a dream come true for all our 32 million people who simply love the game,” said Sport Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al- Faisal, who is also president of the Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee, in a statement the Saudi Press Agency posted to its website.
Saudi Arabia is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
A U.S. intelligence report concluded Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “likely approved” the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018. A federal judge in 2022 dismissed a lawsuit against Prince Mohammed after the Biden-Harris administration said he was immune to the lawsuit because he is the country’s prime minister.
Human rights activists have also criticized the Saudi government over the treatment of women, migrant workers, and other groups in the country.
“No one should be surprised by this,” Cyd Zeigler, Jr., co-founder of Outsports.com, an LGBTQ sports website, told the Washington Blade in an email after FIFA confirmed Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 World Cup. “FIFA, the International Olympic Committee, and many other world governing bodies routinely turn to authoritarian countries with terrible human-rights records to host major sporting events. There are simply few other countries willing to spend the billions of dollars it takes to build the needed infrastructure.”
Peter Tatchell, a long-time LGBTQ activist from the U.K. who is director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation, in a statement described FIFA’s decision as “a betrayal of the values that football should stand for: Inclusivity, fairness, and respect for human rights.”
“This is not about football; it’s about sportswashing,” said Tatchell. “The Saudi regime is using the World Cup to launder its international image and distract from its brutal abuses. By granting them this platform, FIFA is complicit in whitewashing their crimes.”
Qatar, which borders Saudi Arabia, hosted the 2022 World Cup.
Consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized in Qatar.
“Saudi Arabia was the only country to bid for the 2034 FIFA World Cup,” said Zeigler. “So, until FIFA, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and other governing bodies ban major human-rights violators from hosting, we’ll continue to see events like this in Saudi Arabia, China, Qatar, and other countries with terrible LGBTQ rights issues.”
The Blade has reached out to FIFA and the Saudi government for comment.
Sports
Controversy grows over member of Calif. university’s women’s volleyball team
Coach suspended, NCAA sued, more rivals forfeit
San Jose State University’s women volleyball team has collected yet another W by forfeit — its seventh so far this season — as controversy swirls around one player on its roster. She’s one of the seniors, and she has been dragged in the media by her own co-captain, who outed her as transgender.
The Washington Blade is not naming this student athlete since neither she nor the school have confirmed or even commented on her gender identity.
SJSU visited San Diego last weekend for a match before the Aztecs’ biggest home crowd of the season — including protesters waving “Save Women’s Sports” banners and booing one player on the Spartans team in particular: The woman who is reported to be trans.
Security was tight, with metal detectors and extra guards and police officers present. Video posted to YouTube by a right-wing sports media site — which names the player — shows an angry fan arguing with security about his First Amendment rights.
Video recorded during Nov. 9’s game shows a player for San Diego was injured following a spike by the player rumored to be trans, and had to be helped off the court. However, the video clearly shows that player was injured by landing poorly on one foot, not as a result of the spike.
The Aztecs defeated the Spartans 3-1, but San Jose has still punched its ticket to the conference finals, thanks to its record number of forfeits.
Wyoming was set to visit SJSU Thursday, but for the second time is joining other universities that have forfeited games against the Spartans, all without providing a reason. Boise State announced it will forfeit an upcoming match set for Nov. 21, its second forfeit against SJSU.
In September, the Spartans’ co-captain, senior Brooke Slusser, outed her own teammate, the player at the center of this controversy, in joining a federal lawsuit against the NCAA spearheaded by anti-trans inclusion activist and former college athlete Riley Gaines.
Slusser said in the lawsuit and in subsequent interviews that the player in question shouldn’t be on her team. The suit claims the NCAA’s policy on trans athletes violates Title IX by allowing “men” to compete in women’s sports and use women’s locker rooms where they display “full male genitalia.”
The NCAA policy for trans athletes participating in women’s volleyball aligns with that of USA Volleyball, which requires trans female athletes to suppress their testosterone below 10 nmol/L for a period of one year before competition. That is also how the NCAA determines eligibility. SJSU has stated repeatedly that all its players are eligible.
The lawsuit also asks the NCAA to revoke any titles or records won by trans female athletes in women’s competitions, which seems to be specifically aimed at stripping out trans NCAA champions Lia Thomas and CeCé Telfer of their titles in swimming and track and field, respectively.
Prior to this season, the player rumored to be trans did not attract any attention other than being a successful starter, like Slusser. But now that she is in the media spotlight, Slusser has come forward to tell right wing media, including Megyn Kelly, why she feels another woman two inches taller than she is poses a danger.
“I don’t feel safe,” Slusser said on “The Megyn Kelly Show” last month. “I’ve gone to my coaches and said I refuse to play against [her] … It’s not safe.”
In the video, both Kelly and Slusser refer to the player as “him” and a “man,” and name her.
Now comes another twist: San Jose State University suspended associate head coach Melissa Batie-Smoose with pay, indefinitely, after she filed a Title IX complaint against SJSU. She claims the player Slusser identified as trans conspired with an opponent to help the team lose a match and injure Slusser. Batie-Smoose named the player in question in her complaint and on Sept. 23, joined the same lawsuit that Slusser is now a part of.
“Safety is being taken away from women,” Batie-Smoose told Fox News. “Fair play is taken away from women. We need more and more people to do this and fight this fight because women’s sports, as we know it right now will be forever changed.”
Media reporting on the suspension, including Fox News, continue to name the athlete in question, with some also reporting what they say is the athlete’s birth name.
San Jose State released a statement following the suspension of Batie-Smoose: “The associate head coach of the San Jose State University women’s volleyball team is not with the team at this time, and we will not provide further information on this matter,” the team said.
SJSU Coach Todd Kress told ESPN that reports saying that any member of the Spartans colluded with their opponent are “littered with lies.”
The Spartans are currently among the top six finishers in the Mountain West Conference that will qualify to compete in the conference tournament scheduled for Nov. 27-30.
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