Sports

Decision on 2022 Gay Games set for October

Can D.C. edge out Hong Kong and Guadalajara to host event?

Published

8 years ago

August 25, 2017

Lou Chibbaro Jr.

Muriel Bowser, gay news, Washington Blade, 2022 Gay Games

Mayor Muriel Bowser spoke at a bid rally for the Gay Games in June. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The competition between D.C., Hong Kong, and Guadalajara, Mexico to be selected as the host city for the 2022 Gay Games is entering the final stretch, with observers familiar with the quadrennial international LGBT sports event saying each of the cities submitted good bids.

Les Johnson, vice president for external affairs for the Federation of Gay Games, which will select the host city, said the federation’s Site Selection Committee was in the process of completing a 100-page or longer report on each of the three cities that FGG officials will review in September.

The Site Selection Committee visited the three cities in June when D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and dozens of supporters of the D.C. bid, including officials of the city’s convention and visitors bureaus, pledged their support for the D.C. bid.

Johnson noted that representatives of the three cities will be given an opportunity to make a final in-person presentation on why their city should be selected to FGG leaders on Oct. 28 in Paris, where the FGG’s annual meeting will take place.

Two days later, on Oct. 30, the FGG is scheduled to announce the winning city during a gala reception that, among other things, will promote the 2018 Gay Games set to take place in Paris.

“We are confident that if chosen, Washington, D.C. will host a fantastic event that will bring in 12,000 to 15,000 athletes here to compete under the banner of ‘Participation, Inclusion, and Personal Best,’ the motto of the Federation of Gay Games,” said Brent Minor, who serves as chair of Gay Games D.C. 2022, the official name for the District’s bid committee.

D.C., Hong Kong, and Guadalajara each has a long record of hosting large events like conventions and sporting competitions. The bids submitted by the three cities, which are hundreds of pages long, each assert that they have the infrastructure and community support to host dozens of individual sporting events ranging from soccer and swimming to tennis and rowing.

Observers say that if the FGG decision makers view the three cities as being equally qualified from a technical and infrastructure standpoint they might look toward other factors that could favor Hong Kong and Guadalajara. If selected, for example, Hong Kong would mark the first time the Gay Games would be held in Asia. Similarly, Guadalajara would be the first city in Latin America to host the Games.

Minor acknowledges holding the Gay Games in Asia and Latin America would be an historic first. But he said D.C.’s bid calls for significantly increasing the diversity of participants in the Gay Games that would match if not exceed the diversity of holding the Games in Asia or Latin America.

“Ours is more than just geography,” he said. “We are putting forth an initiative to attract more women, more African Americans, deaf and hard of hearing, millennials, and transgender people. We have outlined specific initiatives to engage these populations that have been underrepresented in the Games,” said Minor.

“So that is something where we are very strong because we’re really talking about engaging underrepresented populations, whether that’s bringing more people from Asia or bringing more people from Latin America or bringing more African Americans or more women,” he said.

“I think we have a more thorough outreach plan to reach these populations that have long been priorities for the Federation of Gay Games,” he said.

Johnson, meanwhile, said he is certain that the FGG and each of the three cities in contention to host the 2022 Gay Games has safeguards in place to prevent a financial collapse that prevented another quadrennial LGBT sporting competition – the Out Games – from taking place as scheduled earlier this year in Miami.

To the shock and dismay of hundreds of athletes and spectators who descended on Miami to attend or participate in the Out Games, officials with that event announced virtually all of the sporting venues had to be cancelled. Officials in Miami, which financed part of the scheduled events, announced they were conducting an investigation to determine how such a financial meltdown could have happened.

“The thing about D.C. is there will be insurance and safeguards in place and we’ll know way ahead of time” about any potential problems, Johnson said. “Everything will be tracked. I just don’t see that as a foreseeable thing,” he said.

The D.C. government has pledged to contribute $2 million to help finance the Games if D.C. is selected as the host city.

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Sports

Blade, Pride House LA announce 2028 Olympics partnership

Media sponsorship to amplify stories of LGBTQ athletes

Published

2 days ago

February 6, 2026

Staff reports

(Photo by Chaay Tee via Bigstock)

The Los Angeles Blade and Washington Blade on Friday announced a media partnership with the Out Athlete Fund, which will produce Pride House LA for the 2028 Summer Olympics.

Pride House is the home for LGBTQ fans and athletes that will become a destination during the L.A. Summer Games in West Hollywood in partnership with the City of WeHo. This 17-day celebration for LGBTQ athletes and fans will include medal ceremonies for out athletes, interactive installations, speakers, concerts, and more.

The Los Angeles Blade will serve as the exclusive L.A.-area queer media sponsor for Pride House LA and the Washington Blade will support the efforts and amplify coverage of the 2028 Games.

The Blade will provide exclusive coverage of Pride House plans, including interviews with queer athletes and more. The parties will share content and social media posts raising awareness of the Blade and Out Athlete Fund. The Blade will have media credentials and VIP access for related events.

“We are excited to partner with the Washington Blade, the oldest LGBTQ newspaper in the United States and the Los Angeles Blade, already a strong supporter of Out Athlete Fund and Pride House LA/West Hollywood,” said Michael Ferrera, CEO of Pride House LA. “Our mission is about increasing the visibility of LGBTQ+ athletes and fans to challenge the historical hostility toward our community in the sports world. Visibility is what publications like the Washington and Los Angeles publications are all about. We know they will play a key part in our success.”

“LGBTQ visibility has never been more important and we are thrilled to work with Out Athlete Fund and Pride House LA to tell the stories of queer athletes and ensure the 2028 Summer Games are inclusive and affirming for everyone,” said Blade Editor Kevin Naff.

Out Athlete Fund is a 501(c)3 designed to raise money to offset the training cost of out LGBTQ athletes in need of funding for training. The Washington Blade is the nation’s oldest LGBTQ news outlet; the Los Angeles Blade is its sister publication founded nine years ago.

Italy

44 openly LGBTQ athletes to compete in Milan Cortina Winter Olympics

Games to begin on Friday

Published

5 days ago

February 4, 2026

Michael K. Lavers

(Public domain photo)

More than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes are expected to compete in the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics that open on Friday.

Outsports.com notes eight Americans — including speedskater Conor McDermott-Mostowy and figure skater Amber Glenn — are among the 44 openly LGBTQ athletes who will compete in the games. The LGBTQ sports website also reports Ellis Lundholm, a mogul skier from Sweden, is the first openly transgender athlete to compete in any Winter Olympics.

“I’ve always been physically capable. That was never a question,” Glenn told Outsports.com. “It was always a mental and competence problem. It was internal battles for so long: when to lean into my strengths and when to work on my weaknesses, when to finally let myself portray the way I am off the ice on the ice. That really started when I came out publicly.”

McDermott-Mostowy is among the six athletes who have benefitted from the Out Athlete Fund, a group that has paid for their Olympics-related training and travel. The other beneficiaries are freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy, speed skater Brittany Bowe, snowboarder Maddy Schaffrick, alpine skier Breezy Johnson, and Paralympic Nordic skier Jake Adicoff.

Out Athlete Fund and Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood on Friday will host a free watch party for the opening ceremony.

“When athletes feel seen and accepted, they’re free to focus on their performance, not on hiding who they are,” Haley Caruso, vice president of the Out Athlete Fund’s board of directors, told the Los Angeles Blade.

Four Italian LGBTQ advocacy groups — Arcigay, CIG Arcigay Milano, Milano Pride, and Pride Sport Milano — have organized the games’ Pride House that will be located at the MEET Digital Culture Center in Milan.

Pride House on its website notes it will “host a diverse calendar of events and activities curated by associations, activists, and cultural organizations that share the values of Pride” during the games. These include an opening ceremony party at which Checcoro, Milan’s first LGBTQ chorus, will perform.

ILGA World, which is partnering with Pride House, is the co-sponsor of a Feb. 21 event that will focus on LGBTQ-inclusion in sports. Valentina Petrillo, a trans Paralympian, is among those will participate in a discussion that Simone Alliva, a journalist who writes for the Italian newspaper Domani, will moderate.

“The event explores inclusivity in sport — including amateur levels — with a focus on transgender people, highlighting the role of civil society, lived experiences, and the voices of athletes,” says Milano Pride on its website.

The games will take place against the backdrop of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s decision to ban trans women from competing in women’s sporting events.

President Donald Trump last February issued an executive order that bans trans women and girls from female sports teams in the U.S. A group of Republican lawmakers in response to the directive demanded the International Olympics Committee ban trans athletes from women’s athletic competitions.

The IOC in 2021 adopted its “Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations” that includes the following provisions:

• 3.1 Eligibility criteria should be established and implemented fairly and in a manner that does not systematically exclude athletes from competition based upon their gender identity, physical appearance and/or sex variations.

• 3.2 Provided they meet eligibility criteria that are consistent with principle 4 (“Fairness”, athletes should be allowed to compete in the category that best aligns with their self-determined gender identity.

• 3.3 Criteria to determine disproportionate competitive advantage may, at times, require testing of an athlete’s performance and physical capacity. However, no athlete should be subject to targeted testing because of, or aimed at determining, their sex, gender identity and/or sex variations.

The 2034 Winter Olympics are scheduled to take place in Salt Lake City. The 2028 Summer Olympics will occur in Los Angeles.

Sports

‘Heated Rivalry’ stars to participate in Olympic torch relay

Games to take place next month in Italy

Published

2 weeks ago

January 23, 2026

Staff reports

(Photo courtesy of Crave HBO Max)

“Heated Rivalry” stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie will participate in the Olympic torch relay ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics that will take place next month in Italy.

HBO Max, which distributes “Heated Rivalry” in the U.S., made the announcement on Thursday in a press release.

The games will take place in Milan and Cortina from Feb. 6-22. The HBO Max announcement did not specifically say when Williams and Storrie will participate in the torch relay.