Sports
Athlete Ally speaks out
Members rally against anti-gay remarks
Ukrainian tennis champ Sergiy Stakhovsky drew ire for anti-gay comments he made this summer at Wimbledon. (Photo courtesy Wikimedia)
When Athlete Ally was founded in late 2011, one of its missions was to open a dialogue in the sports community to address the rampant homophobia, transphobia and gender inequalities that are pervasive in sports culture.
One of its members first marks on the sports community came from the creation of Athlete Ally ambassadors which consists of a stable of straight and LGBT athletes standing in unity to support the LGBT sports movement.
The ambassadors range from professional, Olympic, collegiate and amateur athletes and represent a multitude of sports. They have become the ‘watchdogs’ of the sports community.
In July at Wimbledon, Ukrainian tennis player Sergiy Stakhovsky came under fire from the Women’s Tennis Association for anti-gay comments he reportedly made during an interview.
According to the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), Stakhovsky is quoted by Ukrainian sports website XSport.ua as saying: “On the WTA tour, almost every other player is a lesbian. Can you imagine — half of them. So I for sure won’t send my daughter to play tennis.”
During the interview, he also stated that he is certain there are no closeted gay men in the top 100. After he arrived in New York for the U.S. Open last month, he was confronted by multiple media outlets in regards to his comments.
“If there are 100 guys, or 128 guys, I mean, if somebody’s different, he falls out, doesn’t he?” said Stakhovsky, 29 and ranked No. 60 in the world. “In a locker room, where half the guys walking in towels are naked, yeah, you definitely would see something different, no?”
One of the things that were disturbing about Stakhovsky’s comments is that he serves on the Association of Tennis Professionals Player Council.
“None of us were happy with what he said,” Council President Eric Butorac said during the U.S. Open. “After a lot of deliberations we decided to keep him on the council. We didn’t release a statement, but I think in the future we would.”
Four of the tennis ambassadors from Athlete Ally stepped forward with comments of their own about Stakhovsky’s remarks.
Former men’s tour star and Athlete Ally, James Blake, said, “As a former ATP player and father of two amazing daughters, I would be thrilled if they followed in the footsteps of inspirational greats like Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King. Stakhovsky’s comments are out of line, out of touch, and stand in opposition to the values that tennis taught me. And Stakhovsky is kidding himself if he believes there are no gay tennis players in the (men’s) top 100. I hope that if any players inside or outside the top 100 decide to come out, they will be welcomed and supported.”
In an interview last month with USA Today Sports, former world No. 1 and Athlete Ally Andy Roddick dismissed the comments, saying Stakhovsky did not speak for the tour as a whole.
“I’m not going to let one player’s comments define my sport as a whole. I think that’s a little naïve,” Roddick said. “I’m certainly not going to let someone express their views and let it delete the history of our sport and what we’re proud of. We accept and celebrate our champions regardless of who they are as people.”
Rennae Stubbs, a former doubles standout, current ESPN commentator and Athlete Ally, said Stakhovsky’s comments didn’t “deserve a wide audience.”
“We’ve had a lot more women come out, so we have an environment of respect,” Stubbs told USA Today Sports in a phone interview. “The ATP hasn’t had that. It would take a Jason Collins, a brave person to come out and be who they are comfortably. I would guarantee you that 85 percent of the guys in that locker room would treat that person with total respect.”
“As someone who was out for half of their career, there was never a time in the locker room where I thought about the person who was next to me,” Stubbs said. “It’s an ignorant statement. It’s completely incorrect to say half of the women’s tour is gay. That’s completely wrong. To me, it’s crazy that he’s still on the ATP council. Those are inflammatory and outrageous comments.”
Eighteen-time Grand Slam champion and Athlete Ally, Martina Navratilova, who has been out for years, confronted Stakhovsky about his remarks via Twitter.
She wrote: “Did you really say this Sergiy? That you don’t want your daughter to play tennis because she might turn into a lesbian? That is how it was translated. What you said was homophobic — perhaps we can speak sometime in the future.”
The pair agreed they would meet to discuss the issue.
Athlete Ally co-founder Hudson Taylor summed up the incident by adding, “Stakhovsky’s comments were offensive and inappropriate, and our Athlete Ally Ambassadors were quick to act, both in July when Stakhovsky first began making his comments, and at the U.S. Open when he continued them. Athlete Ally’s Ambassadors are always quick to use their platforms to champion LGBT equality. We are glad to have so many Athlete Allies in the tennis world who take a stand for their LGBT fans, on and off the court.”
From left, Rennae Stubbs and Martina Navratilova (Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
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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