Sports
Meet the trans athletes
From golf to dodgeball, out competitors helping to change the rules
Fallon Fox (Photo by Rolando de la Fuente; courtesy CFA)
The United States has an estimated transgender population of 700,000 people, according to UCLA’s Williams Institute.
What this means for the sports community is that the standards and rules that have been put in place by the many different sports need to include provisions enabling transgender people to participate according to their proper gender identity.
Organizations such as the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the International Olympic Committee, the Ladies Professional Golf Association and the United States Soccer Federation have all adopted such policies.
Many of the policies adopted by the governing sports bodies require surgical or hormonal treatment verification prior to competitions. This creates economic barriers for the athletes due to high surgical costs, which are rarely covered by insurance carriers.
Interscholastic athletics are governed by state athletic associations and each of the 50 organizations must put in place their own polices. To date, several have adopted a wide range of policies, not all of which are as inclusive as they should be.
What we have been seeing too often is that the rules are not being followed and the trans athletes are being subjected to discrimination.
Below is a list of just a few of the trans athletes who are competing openly and that have received the permission required from their sports’ governing bodies.
Schuylar Bailar. While he was in high school in McLean, Va., Bailar was recruited by the Harvard women’s swim team. Now 19, he took a year off to transition and subsequently received an invitation to swim on the Harvard men’s team this fall. The governing body for Harvard sports is the NCAA, which has a recommended policy, but each individual school adopts its own policy.
Fallon Fox. After some initial struggles with licensing and discrimination, Fox is competing in mixed martial arts (MMA). Originally from Toledo, Ohio, her last match was the Prize Fighting Championship 10 in Denver on Aug. 14. Licensing is state-run and she has been promoted in the past by the Championship Fighting Alliance.
Chris Mosier. Mosier is from Chicago and is the executive director of GO! Athletes. He is also the founder of transathlete.com. He recently qualified to represent Team USA at the 2016 Duathlon World Championships in Spain in the men’s 35-39 category. The governing bodies are USA Triathlon and the International Triathlon Union.
Gabrielle Ludwig. In 2012, in the middle of a debate over transgender legislation in California, Ludwig returned to the sport of basketball at age 51 by joining the Mission College of Santa Clara team where she played for two years. The 6’6” Ludwig grew up in Wyoming and New York and is a Desert Storm veteran. Assembly Bill 1266 went into effect on Jan. 1, 2014 and requires that California schools respect the gender identity of all students and allow them to participate in all activities, including sports.
Ryland Whittington. Whittington is from San Diego and was diagnosed as deaf at 13 months old in 2009. After receiving his cochlear implants at 19 months, he began communicating to his parents that he identified as a boy. Because he lives in California, he will be allowed to play soccer with no barriers. The sport’s governing body is the California Interscholastic Federation.
Savannah Burton. Burton is originally from Corner Brook, Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada and rowed with another trans teammate in the Canadian Sculling Marathon in 2014. This year she was one of eight women selected to compete for the Canadian national team for the World Dodgeball Championships that were just held Aug. 15-16 in Las Vegas. Her impact has affected multiple sports bodies, including Team Canada, the Canadian Dodgeball Association and the World Dodgeball Federation.
Jazz Jennings. Florida-born Jennings is a 14-year-old YouTube celebrity, spokesperson, LGBTQ activist and athlete. She and her family fought for more than two years for her to be allowed to play on the local girls’ soccer team. The United States Soccer Federation stepped in and created a trans-inclusive policy for youth and adult recreation soccer players of all ages that required the Florida soccer league to allow Jennings to play.
Sgt. Shane Ortega (Photo courtesy ACLU)
Shane Ortega. Ortega is active duty Army and competed in his first physique competition in Honolulu in June where he qualified for junior nationals. At his second competition this September, the Paradise Cup, the 28-year-old will attempt to qualify for nationals. Ortega is stationed in Hawaii and grew up on military bases around the country as well as with family while his mother was deployed. His participation was approved by the National Physique Committee.
Dr. Bobbi Lancaster. Hailing from Chatham, Ontario and residing in the Phoenix area, Lancaster is pursuing a spot on the Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) tour. At age 64, she is currently playing on the Cactus Tour, which serves as a gateway to the LPGA. In 2011, the LPGA’s membership voted to join other sports bodies, including the International Olympic Committee and USA Track and Field, in eliminating the “female at birth” clause from its constitution.
Matt Dawkins. Dawkins, 17, will be a senior at Cherokee High School this fall in Marlton, N.J. He competed in his first meet on the boys’ track team in April and won his heat in the 100. His time was sixth best among 19 Cherokee boys. He is protected by the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association’s transgender policy.
Pat Griffin contributed to this report. A list of transgender athlete inclusion policies can be found at transathlete.com.
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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