Sports
Trekr Racing makes it debut on the high seas
LGBT racing team finishes strong in 150-yacht, three-day regatta
The Trekr Racing group made its debut last weekend. (Photo courtesy Trekr)
When the first race kicked off at the 2017 British Virgin Islands Spring Regatta on March 31, there was one sailing team sporting rainbow gear. Trekr Racing made its debut as an all-LGBT racing team in a regatta that featured 150 yachts from around the world in 18 varied classes competing across three course areas.
The racing team is an offshoot of D.C.-based, LGBT-owned Trekr Adventures, which provides sailing adventure trips around the world. The move into racing for Trekr was in part an effort to increase the visibility of the LGBT community within the sport of sailing.
Already partnered with charter yacht company the Moorings, for their adventuring trips, the racing team utilized a Moorings 51.4 monohull for the regatta. After three days of racing, Trekr Racing finished eighth in the CSA Bareboat 1 class.
The regatta marked the first time that the eight-member Trekr Racing crew served on the same yacht. Skipper Dave Sossamon loves sharing the experience of sailing with others and looked forward to working with members of his own community.
“This was a fun opportunity to introduce the other crew members to racing,” Sossamon says. “In my years of racing, I haven’t met anyone from the LGBT community.”
Born in Baltimore, Sossamon took a sailing course on dinghies in the Baltimore Harbor at age 21. He now holds a United States Coast Guard Captain’s License and has been racing for six years out of Annapolis on his Beneteau 40.7.
“I bought my first boat 20 years ago, when I saw one for sale while I was out for a stroll on Maine Avenue in D.C.,” Sossamon says. “It was a 26-footer and a friend convinced me that I was missing part of the experience by not owning my own.”
Sossamon put off racing at first because he wasn’t sure he would like it. The desire to raise his skill level eventually won out and he continues to learn from racing in regattas.
“It turns out that I love racing and it makes me pay attention to things that I didn’t pay attention to before,” Sossamon says. “It’s an infinitely long learning curve and it increases when you throw in tactics on how to play off the other crew members.”
Another thing that Sossamon was looking forward to in Trekr Racing’s first regatta was the chance to interact as an out athlete at the international event.
“The best way to address bigotry towards a group is to make friends with someone from that group,” Sossamon says. “It’s easy to be publicly out with this crew.”
One of the Trekr crew members who raced for the first time in many years is Hilary Howes. She grew up in the San Francisco Bay area and learned how to sail through a Phys Ed requirement at San Francisco State.
“The thought of sailing always appealed to me and I was glad for the PE requirement,” Howes says. “It was mostly Flying Juniors and Lasers and after college I continued to sail with a professor along with some racing.”
After moving to the area in 2000 for her work in set and lighting design, Howes joined the West River Sailing Club and is now the proud owner of a Pearson 30. Howes stumbled into the opportunity to race with Trekr through her work with Gender Rights Maryland.
“As a new boat owner, I had the chance to learn more in one week than I could have learned in a year,” Howes says. “There was so much experience around me.”
Howes says it was also important have a T to go along with the LGB on the Trekr Racing team. She has been in a 39-year relationship with the same partner she had before she transitioned.
“Being able to meet the yachting community and participate in the race culture was both a benefit to me and our community,” Howes says. “It was big chance to make sailing visible to the LGBT community and to make the sailing community more aware of us.”
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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