Sports
All Star spotlight: Washington Renegades
Straight and gay players find challenge, athletics with local team
Haroon Chang (left) and Logan Cotton. (Chang photo courtesy Chang; Cotton photo courtesy Jill Williamson Photography)
The ongoing All Star series in the Washington Blade features players from sports teams in D.C. who welcome players regardless of sexual orientation, race or ethnicity. This week we meet two players from the Washington Renegades rugby team, one gay and one straight.
The Washington Renegades field competitive sides in the Mid-Atlantic Conference of USA Rugby. They recently sent three teams to the Bingham Cup in Amsterdam with all three squads reaching the semi-finals of their respective divisions. The Blues team won the Bingham Bowl beating the San Francisco Fog 20-0 in the final.
While completing his degrees at the University of Texas at Dallas, Haroon Chang attended a Halloween party hosted by a rugby team. He went to one of their practices and fell in love with the sport.
Growing up in Taiwan, Chang played a little basketball but was mostly focused on academics. His family moved to Dallas right before he started his college education. After graduation, he eventually moved to D.C. in 2012 because he wanted to see more of the country. A quick internet search led him to the Renegades.
“I didn’t know anyone when I moved here and I was looking to meet people and join a community,” Chang says. “I love rugby because it is physically demanding and a good workout. The sport has offered me a sense of family and brotherhood.”
Chang plays both inside and outside centre positions on the Renegades Reds team and last month competed in his second Bingham Cup in Amsterdam. Along with local league play, he has also traveled to tournaments with his teammates in Charlotte, Seattle and Nashville.
“It is amazing to play against teams from all over the world. On the field everyone is trying to win, but off the field we are a family,” Chang says. “It’s great reconnecting with other players at these tournaments. I am a little sad at the end because I wish it would keep going.”
The Renegades play rugby sevens in the summer but Chang, who works as a CPA, will be taking the summer off to catch up with friends. He will be back for the Renegades competitive match schedule in the fall.
“This is a good mix of gay and sports for me. We all play the sport because we love it and we come to the pitch to play,” Chang says. “Team means everyone, gay and straight.”
Rugby makes the world seem a little less big for Logan Cotton. After moving to D.C. in the fall of 2015, he posted on Facebook for rugby recommendations. A friend from college knew somone dating a guy on the Renegades and he signed on to play.
“The Renegades are committed to inclusion and I find that affirming and positive,” says Cotton, who is straight. “No one is beating their chest and there is no toxic masculinity. It’s super refreshing.”
Cotton grew up in Chicago and competed in soccer and swimming. He switched over to football while in high school and his first step into club rugby was while he was attending Tufts University. It was also at Tufts where he evolved to an inclusive mindset through his work at their LGBT center.
“Seeing it manifest in a new context (by playing sports on an LGBT-friendly team) is a good thing. Heteronormativity exists in all sports, but the Renegades have created a positive echo chamber and excel as stewards of the game,” Cotton says. “You can be great at the sport you are playing and still be better angels of our nature.”
Cotton’s path to D.C. was by way of work with Teach for America in Houston. He is now working as a federal consultant for Deloitte and geeks out over things like zoning, street development and when the expertise of the private sector and the government sector complement each other.
He plays as a scrum-half on the Renegades Blues team and missed the recent Bingham Cup in Amsterdam because LSATs (law school admission tests) were on the same weekend. He did play at the international event in Nashville in 2016 and welcomes all experiences with new cultures.
“The more you encounter people from around the world, the more you are growing your ability for empathy and compassion,” Cotton says. “Multiculturalism makes bonds across lines of differences. You be you, and I’ll be me.”
Cotton will be managing the Renegades sevens season this summer and is looking forward to helping players further their development.
“Complete rookies can become a positive factor for any of our teams. The Renegades give everyone an opportunity to improve and people are cheering you on through the process,” Cotton says. “Sports should be about ennobling human beings and pushing us away from our lizard base instincts.”
Sports
US wins Olympic gold medal in women’s hockey
Team captain Hilary Knight proposed to girlfriend on Wednesday
The U.S. women’s hockey team on Thursday won a gold medal at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics.
Team USA defeated Canada 2-1 in overtime. The game took place a day after Team USA captain Hilary Knight proposed to her girlfriend, Brittany Bowe, an Olympic speed skater.
Cayla Barnes and Alex Carpenter — Knight’s teammates — are also LGBTQ. They are among the more than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes who are competing in the games.
The Olympics will end on Sunday.
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.”
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