Sports
New Rogue Darts league draws hundreds
Group offers competition, fun and philanthropy
From left are Tommy Rossman, Austin Henderson and Ralph Alston, co-founders of Rogue Darts. (Photo by John Jack Photography; used with permission)
Earlier this year, Stonewall Darts disappeared from the LGBT sports community in the District. It was part of the D.C.-based Stonewall Sports organization that offers kickball, bocce, dodgeball, billiards, climbing and yoga.
The rumors were formed quickly that the league had been kicked out of the group or that there were personality conflicts. Even the new name, Rogue Darts, could be perceived as a diss.
“I cannot convey with more sincerity that the name was not meant to be a stab in the eye. There were hundreds of names tossed around and we spent weeks deciding what it would be,” says Austin Henderson, founder of Stonewall Darts and co-founder of Rogue Darts. “We respect Stonewall Sports and will continue to have a relationship with them.”
Henderson was among the first players in the inaugural Stonewall Kickball league in 2010 and the first Stonewall Bocce league in 2011. He was working as a bartender at MOVA when the idea came to launch Stonewall Darts in the bar’s back room. The first season in 2013 drew 72 players.
There was immediate success with growth resulting in a move to Diego and eventually to Cobalt in 2015. Demand was so high that members formed an offseason league at Nellie’s called Tuesday Night Flights.
For those first few years, all the Stonewall leagues were operating independently. With the Stonewall expansion to other cities and the formation of Stonewall Dodgeball in 2014, a governance structure was put in place with a national board under the name Stonewall Sports.
Stonewall Darts officially joined the organization and made changes to follow the new governance structure and expansion policy. In March, its members informed Stonewall Sports that they had decided to separate themselves and rebrand as Rogue Darts.
“We have similar purpose and interest with Stonewall Sports, but we wanted to be independent,” Henderson says. “This will allow us to be proactive and reactive to the needs of the dart players.”
Rogue Darts rolled out this summer with 336 players on 56 teams playing on Thursday nights at Cobalt. Registration for the winter season opens on Dec. 4 for returning players and the following day for new players.
Along with the summer and winter leagues under the Rogue Darts name, they continue to run the offshoot league, Tuesday Night Flights, at Nellie’s in the spring and fall. Both leagues utilize steel tip darts and the game of Cricket.
At 336 players, they have increased the number of boards, walls and physical space to foster more growth. One thing that continues to be a struggle is coming up with 56 distinct colors for the team shirts.
“We have to utilize different shirt brands to come up with varying hues. The sorting process is crazy,” says Henderson. “Last summer’s most interesting color name was heather apricot.”
One of the unique things for Rogue is that sponsorship for the league is built-in since they are playing in bars. It opens them up to looking for sponsorship outside of the food and beverage industry such as the support they receive from the Tom Buerger Team.
Registration for the league is $50 per player and Rogue Darts is currently giving $60 per player to charities chosen by the teams.
This season, the dart leagues will surpass $150,000 in charitable giving to local nonprofits over the past five years. Rogue has added two new board members including a director of education to take them to the next level in engaging their charities.
“This started out to introduce a new sport to the LGBT community and it has turned into something that is bigger than myself,” Henderson says. “It is an amazing opportunity for social connections and to have a positive impact on the community.”
Coming up for Rogue Darts is continued branding efforts, enhancements to the player experience and a possible expansion to Northern Virginia. Henderson speaks to the draw of playing in a dart league.
“Our demographics are broad, and we attract a varied sampling from the LGBT community. Not everyone is physically capable of playing some of the other sports, but they can throw darts. Any one of our players can have that ‘sports moment’ night when they can hit bullseyes. We offer a fun experience with a philanthropy twist.”
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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