Sports
Gay Games-OutGames plan to merge
Leaders of two LGBT sports groups eye ‘One World Event’ in 2022
‘It’s going to take a great deal of compromise,’ said Brent Minor of Team D.C. regarding the potential merger of Gay Games and OutGames. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Leaders of the two quadrennial LGBT international sports competitions – the Gay Games and the World OutGames – signed a memorandum of understanding in May establishing what they say is a preliminary framework for merging the events in 2022.
Officials with the Federation of Gay Games (FGG) and the Gay and Lesbian International Sports Association (GLISA), which organizes the OutGames, said the decision to move ahead with plans for a merger was prompted by the results of a widely distributed online survey of members of both organizations.
According to the officials, the more than 2,000 responses to the survey showed that 88.7 percent of respondents support having a single quadrennial sports, human rights and cultural event in 2022.
The Gay Games were first held in San Francisco in 1982 after gay Olympics athlete Tom Waddell, who is credited with founding the event, was forced to drop the name he first envisioned, the “Gay Olympics,” after the International Olympics Committee insisted it held exclusive legal rights the Olympics name.
The Gay Games continued every four years since its founding year in San Francisco, attracting thousands of LGBT athletes and spectators in cities in North America and Europe as the sole international LGBT sporting competition until 2006, when the first World OutGames competition was held in Montreal.
The OutGames first emerged two years earlier, in 2004, when an irreconcilable disagreement surfaced between the FGG and the group it initially selected to organize the Gay Games in Montreal for 2006. After protracted and sometimes acrimonious negotiations failed, the Montreal organizers broke away from the FGG and announced they would organize their own event in Montreal called the OutGames.
The FGG then reopened the bidding process for another city to host the Gay Games, and Chicago was selected as the new host city. Both events took place within a week of each other in the summer of 2006, and two international quadrennial LGBT sports events have been held ever since.
Nearly all of the dual events have attracted far fewer athletes and spectators than the Gay Games had attracted for its events prior to the split.
“They have to come together with one event because having two events has really hurt both events, and the community wants just one quadrennial event to focus on,” said Cyd Zeigler, co-founder of OutSports Blog, a highly regarded online publication about LGBT sports issues.
“The real question is what does it look like and what is it called,” Zeigler told the Washington Blade. “And for me, it would be such a shame to lose the name Gay Games.”
Zeigler and others supportive of the Gay Games say the Gay Games name and brand have become an important part of the LGBT community’s history and should be preserved.
Among those agreeing with Zeigler is Jessica Waddell Lewinstein, the daughter of the late Gay Games founder Tom Waddell. However, unlike Zeigler, who favors a merger, Lewinstein has come out strongly against the proposed merger as disclosed by the two groups.
“In general, I’m totally open to merging two events, if it is done properly and makes sense, but I’m not seeing anything that tells me that this is one of those situations,” she told the Windy City Times in July.
Officials with the FGG and GLISA have been cautious about publicly discussing potential stumbling blocks to a merger agreement, saying instead that the memorandum of understanding is a work in progress. Both sides have said they are hopeful that a final agreement can be reached because their respective members and supporters strongly favor a single LGBT international sports event.
“All of us at the FGG are extremely thrilled to see things moving forward in a positive manner,” said FGG Co-President Kurt Dahl in a statement in March.
“GLISA is excited on the progress of this vital collaboration that benefits the worldwide LGBT sporting community, GLISA Co-President Tamara Adrian said at the same time.
The memorandum of understanding calls for following recommendations and proposals established by representatives of both groups during a meeting earlier this year in Cologne, Germany in which a lengthy and detailed document referred to as the Cologne Report was drafted and approved.
Among other things, the MOU provides for the creation of a Transition Commission, which will “steer the development of a single organizational body to deliver future One World Events,” a statement released by the two groups says.
Officials on both sides have also said that a merger of the FGG and GLISA is just one of several options under consideration. A single World Event, as the two sides refer to a merged LGBT sports competition, could also be put together by the creation of a newly created entity separate from the FGG and GLISA, officials with the two groups have said.
A One World event could not be held any sooner than 2022, the officials have said, because plans for the next Gay Games and World OutGames are already solidified. The next World OutGames is set to take place in Miami in 2017. The next Gay Games is slated to take place in Paris in 2018.
Meanwhile, an official Working Group consisting of representatives of the FGG and GLISA has been conferring with LGBT sports organizations in North America and Europe to obtain input on the best ways to bring about a merger of the two events.
“We hosted a town hall meeting in June with representatives of the working group,” said Brent Minor, president of Team D.C., an umbrella group representing D.C.-area LGBT sports groups and teams.
Among those participating in the meeting was Les Johnson, an FGG board member from D.C.
“It is clearly a desire among U.S. sports groups to have something in 2022,” Minor said. “That is the goal. A lot of people feel that way,” he said. “The key is can these two organizations that have been estranged come together for one event? It will require compromise.”
Minor said that in addition to the issue of what the joint event should be called, the two sides remain divided over whether a human rights conference should be a major component of the 2022 event and all those that follow. The OutGames organizers have long favored and included in their event such a conference.
Minor, who has been a longtime supporter of the Gay Games, said the Gay Games side doesn’t think such a conference is essential to a quadrennial LGBT sports competition.
“We all want it to be a sports and cultural event,” he said. “We think sports should be the primary focus.”
But Minor added that Team D.C. officials are hopeful that the talks will be successful because uniting the two organizations to hold a single international event is in the best interests of the LGBT community.
“It’s going to take a great deal of compromise,” he said.
The Opening Ceremony to the 2014 International Gay Games was held at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key.
Sports
JK Rowling condemns history-making transgender Paralympian
Valentina Petrillo will race again Friday after failing to qualify in 400m final
Valentina Petrillo ran her personal best Monday at the Paralympics in Paris, but it was not enough to qualify for Tuesday’s finals in the 400m T12 competition. Losing to two cisgender women was also not enough to quell a social media firestorm of transphobia and hate directed at the first out trans Paralympian runner.
Hajar Safarzadeh Ghahderijani of Iran was first across the finish line, followed by Venezuela’s Alejandra Perez. Petrillo, the Italian sprinter, finished third with 57.58.
“I tried until the end, I couldn’t do it,” Petrillo, 51, told reporters after the race. “I missed that last straight. I pushed harder than this morning and I tried. They are stronger than me. There is nothing I can do. I had to do 56 to get into the final. It’s impossible, 57.58. I have to be happy even though I’m a little upset.”
Petrillo also spoke indirectly about haters, but what concerned her most, she said, was the perspective of her son, 9-year-old Lorenzo, who calls her “Dad.”
“I hope my son is proud of me,” Petrillo, said, amid tears. “That’s important to me because I’m a trans dad, it’s not everyone’s dream dad. But I hope he will be proud of me. I hope he will always stand by me, I hope that he loves me even if I am like this. I can’t help it if I’m like this, I’m sorry. Don’t treat trans people badly. We suffer. It’s not fair. We don’t hurt anybody.”
JK Rowling disagrees.
In a social media post on what was Twitter, the outspoken opponent of trans rights and inclusion denounced Petrillo as an “out and proud cheat.”
Why all the anger about the inspirational Petrillo? The cheat community has never had this kind of visibility! Out and proud cheats like Petrillo prove the era of cheat-shaming is over. What a role model! I say we give Lance Armstrong his medals back and move on. #Cheats #NoShame pic.twitter.com/bvqhs3DexI
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 2, 2024
Others condemned Petrillo as a “pervert,” a “disgrace” and of course, a man, and a “biological male” who “robbed a young disabled woman” of her chance to compete.
🚨BREAKING🚨
A biologically male runner has just qualified for the Women's 400m T12 semi-finals at the Paris Paralympic Games.
Valentina Petrillo, a father of two, previously won 11 national titles in the men's category before beginning to identify as a "woman." pic.twitter.com/7CqLuFD8dB
— REDUXX (@ReduxxMag) September 2, 2024
The 50-year-old Italian transgender athlete Valentina Petrillo robbed a young disabled woman from a spot in the semifinals of the Paris Paralympics today
Petrillo has previously said that those who don't want Petrillo to compete against females are "on the same level as Hitler." pic.twitter.com/DLU2hxWEVD
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) September 2, 2024
Petrillo has one more chance to compete for a medal this Friday in the 200m T12 visual impairment competition. She’ll compete against Katrin Mueller-Rottgardt of Germany.
“Basically, everyone should live how they like in everyday life,” Mueller-Rottgardt told the German tabloid Bild. “But I find it difficult in professional sports. She lived and trained for a long time as a man, so there’s a possibility that physical conditions are different than for someone who comes into the world as a woman. So, she could have advantages from it.”
For her part, Petrillo is not letting detractors stop her from running as the woman she is and living as the woman she is.
“There are lots of people dying only for being trans, people are killed because they are trans, people commit suicide because they are trans and lose their jobs, or are not included in sport,” she said. “But I made it. If I can make it, everyone can make it.”
As for so-called “advantages,” Petrillo cites a study funded by the IOC — and published in April in the British Journal of Sports Medicine — showing that trans women are actually at a physical disadvantage compared to cis women across several areas, including lung function and lower body strength.
“This means rather that I have a disadvantage, because apart from anything else, going through hormonal treatment means I am going against my body so against the biology of my body and that’s certainly something that’s not good for it,” Petrillo told the Associated Press in an interview in a suburb of Bologna, where she lives and works in the IT sector.
She was diagnosed with Stargardt disease, a degenerative eye condition, at the age of 14, and can only see 1/50th of what most people can. Petrillo cannot drive and uses public transportation to get around, and told me in a 2020 podcast interview that the trauma of her disability has haunted her all her years.
“I tried to lead a normal life as much as possible,” she said through a translator.
Although her condition forced her to give up running as a teen, she picked it up again in her 40s, telling me it felt empowering, “Knowing I have two good legs,” she said. “Running is life.”
But it was not enough. Petrillo, who was raised as a boy, had been keeping a secret since she was a child, saying that even at age seven, she knew who she was. “I didn’t feel like myself.”
“I decided to transition after years of fighting myself and not understanding what was the problem,” Petrillo said. “It was a very difficult decision.”
Petrillo came out to her wife, Elena, in 2017, just one year after they wed. With Elena’s support, she transitioned in 2018 and started her medical transition the following January. They remained married, for a time, and have another child in addition to Lorenzo. “My wife is very supportive,” Petrillo told me in 2020. “99 percent of the stories end up in divorce, but my wife is the most important love of my life.”
Elena and Valentina have since divorced but remain friends. She and Lorenzo and Petrillo’s brother, Francesco, were in Paris to cheer her on.
“Family is everything,” she said this week.
Petrillo won 11 national competitions in the male T12 category between 2015 and 2018, then won gold in her first official race as the woman she is, in the 100m, 200m and 400m T12 events at the 2020 Italian Paralympics Championship. Last year, she won two bronzes at the World Para Athletics Championships.
In that competition, she narrowly beat Melani Berges of Spain, who placed fourth in the semifinal. That meant Berges didn’t qualify for the final and missed her chance to make it to the Paralympics.
Calling it an “injustice,” Berges told Spanish sports site Relevo that she “accepts and respects” trans people, but “we are no longer talking about daily life, we are talking about sport, which requires strength, a physique.”
The International Paralympic Committee says it “welcomes” Petrillo, who is not the first out trans Paralympian. That honor belongs to Dutch discus thrower Ingrid van Kranen, who finished ninth in the 2016 Rio Games. The rules of the World Para Athletics organization state a person who is legally recognized as a woman is eligible to compete in female categories. She legally changed her name and gender in 2023.
Back in 2020, Petrillo told me the 200m race she will compete in this Friday is her favorite, because of the performance of her personal hero, 1980 Olympic champion Pietro Mennea, who holds Italy’s world record in the event.
“I’m dreaming about this,” she said, recalling the memory of seeing him compete when she was seven years old. “The determination that Mennea showed was something he taught all of us. That is how I feel when I am running. That same determination and that same drive.” And she said again, “Running is life.”
Enjoy world-class soccer at Audi Field and celebrate United Night Out on Aug. 24. Bring your friends and family for an evening full of fun and inclusivity. Experience the thrill of the crowd at Audi Field, have some delicious food at the concessions, and cheer on DC United as they take on Dallas FC. Visit D.C. United’s website for tickets.
DC United will host the 13th annual “Pride Night Out” on Saturday, Aug. 24 at 7:30 p.m.
There will be a special tailgate in Heineken Hall at 6 p.m., providing exclusive giveaways and swag. When purchasing tickets, please use the same email used for your Ticketmaster account, and your tickets will be transferred. Proceeds from the ticket sales will go to Federal Triangles Soccer Club and Team DC.
Tickets start at $41 and can be purchased on DC United’s website.
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