Sports
Rookies & vets: Federal Triangles
Players of all skill levels find fun in gay league
Scott Teribury, left, and Andy Sylvia on the field. (Photo courtesy Federal Triangles)
This week in the continuing Blade series on the rookies and veterans that make up the LGBT sports teams in the Washington area, we check in with two gay athletes from the Federal Triangles Soccer Club.
The Triangles host the Summer of Freedom League every summer and three tournaments throughout the year. In addition, their players travel to out-of-town tournaments and play in a variety of straight leagues in the area.
Scott Teribury grew up on military bases mostly in northern Virginia and competed in wrestling and soccer. He also ran cross country and track for his high school. During his collegiate years at Christopher Newport University, he played intramural soccer.
After moving to the D.C. area in 2012 to work in consulting, he Googled “gay sports” and found two clubs that interested him, D.C. Front Runners and the Federal Triangles Soccer Club. He ended up going with a friend to a Triangles pick-up game in 2013 and was recruited and put into a league mid-season.
“When I moved to the area I only knew a couple of people,” Teribury says. “The Triangles participate in so many things and the athletes are all so different. I have made many new friends including a best friend.”
Teribury has been competing in the area competitive leagues along with the Summer of Freedom League. He says the veterans are very supportive and are always looking to put new players on their teams. Several of the Triangles players have called Teribury the best rookie player to come along in years.
He has also been traveling with his teammates to tournaments and has played in Cleveland, Provincetown, Rehoboth Beach, Philadelphia and New York.
An ankle injury in October has him sidelined for the time being and he will have surgery in January. The recovery period will be four to six months, but he is already planning his return.
“The International Gay & Lesbian Football Association Worldcup is in Portland in August of 2016,” Teribury says. “I am hoping to be there.”
Andy Sylvia was born and raised on the eastern shore of Maryland and played club soccer up until his high school years. After finishing his degree at Salisbury University he moved to the D.C area for his work in human resources.
In 1998 he was looking for a new social activity and began playing pick-up games with the Triangles and is still playing with some of those same players.
“My first tournament with the Triangles was in Fort Lauderdale and it was great opportunity to bond with my teammates. Soccer has given me a fun group of people to travel with,” Sylvia says. “I have also met people from all over the world and it is a comfortable feeling to compete with those same athletes at the international events.”
Over the past 18 years, Sylvia has played in tournaments in Cologne, Dublin, London, Copenhagen, Sydney, Buenos Aires, Barcelona and Montreal among others. Along with Teribury, he is also planning on being at the Worldcup in Portland next year.
Sylvia says people come and go all the time and depending on the skill level of the rookie player coming in, you sometimes have to remind them that they are playing in a recreational league.
“Putting a team together is more than just throwing 11 people on the field,” Sylvia says. “A rookie player needs to learn how to play with his team and the team needs to learn how to play with him.”
Coming up for Sylvia this next year is the Liberty Bell tournament in Philadelphia, the Summer of Freedom League, the aforementioned Worldcup in Portland and the Rehoboth Beach Classic of which he is one of the founding players.
“Most of the teams I play on now have athletes that are over 30 years old,” Sylvia says. “The skill levels of the rookie players coming in today are much higher than they were before soccer became popular.”
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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