Sports
Players’ wives to join LGBT fans for Night Out
Major League Baseball initially wary when event began
Brent Minor of Team D.C. met with Washington Nationals players before the game at the Night Out at the Nationals event last year. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Team D.C. will host the 11th annual Night OUT at the Nationals on Wednesday at Nationals Park as the Nats take on the Tampa Bay Rays.
Proceeds from ticket sales will help to fund the Team D.C. College Scholarship Fund and the event continues to be the largest LGBT community night in major league sports.
When the Washington Nationals first came to town in 2005, one of the Team D.C. board members, Mike Stebbins, pitched the idea of a community night.
“It was hard to know if the event would be successful,” says Brent Minor, founder and executive director of Team D.C. “We bought 200 advance tickets and I thought we might lose our shirt.”
After those tickets promptly sold out at Capital Pride, Team D.C. knew they were on to something good. The event has grown over the years and more extras have been added thanks to Minor’s moxie.
“In the beginning we didn’t have the first pitch, the honorees or the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington singing the national anthem,” Minor says. “Major League Baseball was very reluctant. They asked if the singers would be coming out in ‘costumes.’”
The progression of extras began in 2006 with the addition of the Gay Men’s Chorus and in 2007 a member of the LGBT community began throwing the first pitch.
Night OUT at the Nationals ticket sales have plateaued at 3,500 to 4,000 and the evening, always held the week following Capital Pride, has become a social event for some and a chance to watch a Nationals game with members of their own community for others.
“It is definitely a well-rounded experience,” Minor says. “The most gratifying part for me is the diverse groups of people that it attracts. Besides the LGBT sports teams, our All Star Series Partners include women’s groups, corporations and religious groups.”
Minor says that over the years, the honorees from the LGBT community who have participated in the pre-game ceremonies have all been incredible, but one stands out in his mind.
“We honored Daniel Hernandez in 2011, the brave gay intern who helped to save the life of Rep. Gabby Giffords following the Arizona shootings,” Minor says. “It was the first time that we were able to honor someone publicly that might not have been honored otherwise.”
This year’s Night OUT at the Nationals is serving up a new twist in the form of a tie-in with the Washington Nationals First Ladies Club. Several of the player’s wives will be in attendance at the pre-game party and will sit with the LGBT community during the game.
Erica May-Scherzer, wife of pitcher Max Scherzer, is active on social media in support of the LGBT community and came across a few of the other LGBT community nights across the country.
“I wanted to get involved after reading about the backlash surrounding the Oakland A’s Pride Night and then the announcement of the first Pride Night with Max’s former team, the Detroit Tigers.” May-Scherzer says. “The wives are looking forward to embracing the whole event.”
For Minor, having the wives involved is a great step forward in the relationship with the Nationals and he believes that all the forward momentum will help lessen the mystique of the LGBT community.
“I hope that events like this have opened the eyes of the Major League Baseball owners and the baseball community,” Minor says. “The positives outweigh the negatives and that also applies to the possibility of having LGBT players in professional baseball.”
Tickets for Night OUT at the Nationals are $25 and can be purchased at the Team D.C. booth at Capital Pride Festival, Nellie’s Sports Bar and online on the Nationals website. Night OUT with the Washington Mystics (women’s basketball) is June 23 and Night OUT with the Washington Kastles (tennis) is July 16. Full schedule at teamdc.org.
This year’s event will feature the following:
First Pitch: Thomas Roberts — MSNBC television journalist and LGBT rights advocate
Line-Up Cards: Dr. Dana Beyer — executive director of Gender Rights Maryland and trans rights advocate
Play Ball: Eric Fanning — chief of staff of the United States Department of Defense
Honorees:
Ryan Bos — executive director of Capital Pride
Bernie Delia — president of Capital Pride
John Ramsey — Team D.C. Scholarship applicant and local high school baseball player
National Anthem: Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington
Pre-Game Party: With the Washington Nationals First Ladies Club near the Scoreboard Pavilion
Pre-Game DJ: DJ Chord spinning in the Scoreboard Pavilion
Pre-Game Entertainment: D.C.’s Different Drummers playing in Centerfield Plaza
Sports
US wins Olympic gold medal in women’s hockey
Team captain Hilary Knight proposed to girlfriend on Wednesday
The U.S. women’s hockey team on Thursday won a gold medal at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.
Team USA defeated Canada 2-1 in overtime. The game took place a day after Team USA captain Hilary Knight proposed to her girlfriend, Brittany Bowe, an Olympic speed skater.
Cayla Barnes and Alex Carpenter — Knight’s teammates — are also LGBTQ. They are among the more than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes who are competing in the games.
The Olympics will end on Sunday.
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.”
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