Sports
African adventures
Gay cyclist riding from Cairo to Cape Town
Nate Freeman is riding to fight African homophobia. (Photo courtesy Freeman)
When the Blade caught up with American lawyer Nate Freeman, he was just returning from a long weekend of canoeing on the Orange River in Namibia.
Most anyone else would have been resting because on Jan. 9, Freeman embarked on a 12,000-kilometer bike ride from Cairo to Cape Town that will span four months and travel through 10 countries in Africa.
The Out in Africa Ride is the inaugural project for an initiative that is dedicated to identifying and supporting nonprofit groups throughout Africa who are working to fight homophobia, eliminate stigma and provide legal protection to LGBT people.
“A major component of human dignity is the ability to express yourself,” Freeman says. “I was looking for what I could do policy wise and connect that to groups on the ground.”
Freeman requested that this story not be published by the Blade until he passed safely through Egypt and Sudan due to the safety concerns of an LGBT rights advocate crossing their borders.
The Out in Africa Ride is piggybacking on an event known as the Tour d’Afrique and Freeman is one of 40 cyclists on the Tour. They will only have 20 rest days during the four-month ride and several of the ride days will be a stage race similar to the stages in the Tour de France.
The group of cyclists on the Tour range from people who just want to finish to competitive cyclists. Many are riding for causes of their own choosing.
The obstacles the cyclists will face are enormous and include politics, religion, animals, disease, climate, terrain, injuries and stone-throwing children. Last year, two of the riders on the Tour contracted Malaria and there is the constant threat of Dengue fever.
Freeman, 32, was born and raised in Mount Vernon, Iowa and went on to Whitman College. He received his law degree from Yale.
He ran cross country and played tennis in high school, but it wasn’t until his college years that he truly found athletics and it began with rock climbing, hiking, dance and ballet. He segued into triathlons after his college years and continues to dance.
After receiving his law degree, he spent two years clerking for the Honorable Tena Campbell and the Honorable Robert J Shelby in Salt Lake City. It was during that time that Judge Shelby struck down Amendment 3 of Utah’s State Constitution banning same-sex marriage.
For the past year, Freeman has been clerking for Justice Edwin Cameron at the Constitutional Court of South Africa. Cameron is the first and only senior South African official to state publicly that he is living with HIV/AIDS. He is widely known for his advocacy of LGBT rights.
Leading up to the Out in Africa Ride, Freeman found himself struggling with the context of the project he was about to initiate.
“I was forming a challenging role to play,” Freeman says. “When you care about an issue and you are not from the place experiencing the issue, it doesn’t always translate.”
The first purpose of the Ride is to get donors to contribute to programs that are not widely known. They have chosen two organizations as their first partners; the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum in Uganda and the Gay & Lesbian Network in South Africa.
The second purpose is to get local programs to link with other local programs and to share their current campaigns and advocacy strategies.
The timing seems right for this kind of connection between the advocacy groups. The criminalization of same-sex relationships in Africa is widespread and growing. Much of it has made the news, but there are instances in lesser known parts of the continent where the laws are incredibly repressive.
The Ride project has presented an interactive map reflecting the current laws in Africa with three countries showing a same-sex relationship death penalty.
“Many of the intolerant leaders in Africa believe that homosexuality is a Western concept and that LGBT rights are a way for former colonial powers to exercise control,” Freeman says. “As for the people of Africa, many of them don’t realize what rights can be available to them.”
As of the release of this story, the cyclists have crossed 2,916 kilometers of terrain with 9,178 kilometers to go.
Despite the challenges, Freeman remains upbeat about the experience and what lies ahead. Below is an excerpt from his last blog post:
Lest I leave you with a vision that the last week was a complete hellscape, I should point out that the past eight days have included some of the most beautiful moments of the trip. Besides some major bonding time with Simon and with the other cyclists, I was frequently overwhelmed with gratitude for the glimpses of life that I got to see. Very few foreigners ever traverse southern Sudan, and many of the villages we passed are not on any map. Whether it was the vast unpopulated sorghum fields of Sudan or the densely populated but breathtaking highlands of Ethiopia, the scenery more than rewarded the effort it took to view it. Most importantly, I have a sense that I’ve overcome the first major physical and psychological hurdles of the trip. While there are sure to be new challenges ahead, I think Simon and I are ready to face the next three months with a smile. And maybe some body armor.
The Ride can be followed at outinafricaride.org.
Sports
Attitude! French ice dancers nail ‘Vogue’ routine
Cizeron and Fournier Beaudry strike a pose in memorable Olympics performance
Madonna’s presence is being felt at the Olympic Games in Italy.
Guillaume Cizeron and his rhythm ice dancing partner Laurence Fournier Beaudry of France performed a flawless skate to Madonna’s “Vogue” and “Rescue Me” on Monday.
The duo scored an impressive 90.18 for their effort, the best score of the night.
“We’ve been working hard the whole season to get over 90, so it was nice to see the score on the screen,” Fournier Beaudry told Olympics.com. “But first of all, just coming out off the ice, we were very happy about what we delivered and the pleasure we had out there. With the energy of the crowd, it was really amazing.”
Watch the routine on YouTube here.
Italy
Olympics Pride House ‘really important for the community’
Italy lags behind other European countries in terms of LGBTQ rights
The four Italian advocacy groups behind the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics’ Pride House hope to use the games to highlight the lack of LGBTQ rights in their country.
Arcigay, CIG Arcigay Milano, Milano Pride, and Pride Sport Milano organized the Pride House that is located in Milan’s MEET Digital Culture Center. The Washington Blade on Feb. 5 interviewed Pride House Project Manager Joseph Naklé.
Naklé in 2020 founded Peacox Basket Milano, Italy’s only LGBTQ basketball team. He also carried the Olympic torch through Milan shortly before he spoke with the Blade. (“Heated Rivalry” stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie last month participated in the torch relay in Feltre, a town in Italy’s Veneto region.)
Naklé said the promotion of LGBTQ rights in Italy is “actually our main objective.”
ILGA-Europe in its Rainbow Map 2025 notes same-sex couples lack full marriage rights in Italy, and the country’s hate crimes law does not include sexual orientation or gender identity. Italy does ban discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, but the country’s nondiscrimination laws do not include gender identity.
ILGA-Europe has made the following recommendations “in order to improve the legal and policy situation of LGBTI people in Italy.”
• Marriage equality for same-sex couples
• Depathologization of trans identities
• Automatic co-parent recognition available for all couples
“We are not really known to be the most openly LGBT-friendly country,” Naklé told the Blade. “That’s why it (Pride House) was really important for the community.”
“We want to use the Olympic games — because there is a big media attention — and we want to use this media attention to raise the voice,” he added.
Naklé noted Pride House will host “talks and roundtables every night” during the games that will focus on a variety of topics that include transgender and nonbinary people in sports and AI. Another will focus on what Naklé described to the Blade as “the importance of political movements now to fight for our rights, especially in places such as Italy or the U.S. where we are going backwards, and not forwards.”
Seven LGBTQ Olympians — Italian swimmer Alex Di Giorgio, Canadian ice dancers Paul Poirier and Kaitlyn Weaver, Canadian figure skater Eric Radford, Spanish figure skater Javier Raya, Scottish ice dancer Lewis Gibson, and Irish field hockey and cricket player Nikki Symmons — are scheduled to participate in Pride House’s Out and Proud event on Feb. 14.
Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood representatives are expected to speak at Pride House on Feb. 21.
The event will include a screening of Mariano Furlani’s documentary about Pride House and LGBTQ inclusion in sports. The MiX International LGBTQ+ Film and Queer Culture Festival will screen later this year in Milan. Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood is also planning to show the film during the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Naklé also noted Pride House has launched an initiative that allows LGBTQ sports teams to partner with teams whose members are either migrants from African and Islamic countries or people with disabilities.
“The objective is to show that sports is the bridge between these communities,” he said.
Bisexual US skier wins gold
Naklé spoke with the Blade a day before the games opened. The Milan Cortina Winter Olympics will close on Feb. 22.
More than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes are competing in the games.
Breezy Johnson, an American alpine skier who identifies as bisexual, on Sunday won a gold medal in the women’s downhill. Amber Glenn, who identifies as bisexual and pansexual, on the same day helped the U.S. win a gold medal in team figure skating.
Glenn said she received threats on social media after she told reporters during a pre-Olympics press conference that LGBTQ Americans are having a “hard time” with the Trump-Vance administration in the White House. The Associated Press notes Glenn wore a Pride pin on her jacket during Sunday’s medal ceremony.
“I was disappointed because I’ve never had so many people wish me harm before, just for being me and speaking about being decent — human rights and decency,” said Glenn, according to the AP. “So that was really disappointing, and I do think it kind of lowered that excitement for this.”
Puerto Rico
Bad Bunny shares Super Bowl stage with Ricky Martin, Lady Gaga
Puerto Rican activist celebrates half time show
Bad Bunny on Sunday shared the stage with Ricky Martin and Lady Gaga at the Super Bowl halftime show in Santa Clara, Calif.
Martin came out as gay in 2010. Gaga, who headlined the 2017 Super Bowl halftime show, is bisexual. Bad Bunny has championed LGBTQ rights in his native Puerto Rico and elsewhere.
“Not only was a sophisticated political statement, but it was a celebration of who we are as Puerto Ricans,” Pedro Julio Serrano, president of the LGBTQ+ Federation of Puerto Rico, told the Washington Blade on Monday. “That includes us as LGBTQ+ people by including a ground-breaking superstar and legend, Ricky Martin singing an anti-colonial anthem and showcasing Young Miko, an up-and-coming star at La Casita. And, of course, having queer icon Lady Gaga sing salsa was the cherry on the top.”
La Casita is a house that Bad Bunny included in his residency in San Juan, the Puerto Rican capital, last year. He recreated it during the halftime show.
“His performance brought us together as Puerto Ricans, as Latin Americans, as Americans (from the Americas) and as human beings,” said Serrano. “He embraced his own words by showcasing, through his performance, that the ‘only thing more powerful than hate is love.’”
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Trump falsely links trans people to terrorism
Fellow lawmakers praise Adam Ebbin after Va. Senate farewell address
LGBTQ groups question US health agreements with African countries
European Parliament resolution backs ‘full recognition of trans women as women’
FOIA lawsuit filed against State Department for PEPFAR records
Trans sports bans rooted in eugenics
Pride flag raised at Stonewall after National Park Service took it down
Trans students not included in new India University Grants Commission equity rules
Calendar: February 13-19
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State Department4 days agoFOIA lawsuit filed against State Department for PEPFAR records
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Opinions5 days ago
Trans sports bans rooted in eugenics
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New York4 days ago
Pride flag raised at Stonewall after National Park Service took it down
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India4 days ago
Trans students not included in new India University Grants Commission equity rules
