Sports
Blade All Stars spotlight: ballroom dancers enjoy training, competition
Duo brought home three medals from ’18 Paris Gay Games
This week in the Washington Blade’s All Star series, we shine a spotlight on two LGBT athletes who are navigating their way through the costumes, music and theatrics of competitive dancesport.
Growing up in Milan, Italy, Alessandro Ghidini was drawn to sports that involved water. He competed in swimming and water polo before joining the varsity Olympic kayaking team at the University of Milan.
His studies to become an obstetrician-gynecologist brought him to the United States where he attended Yale for five years along with a fellowship in New York.
After arriving in D.C. in 1994, he returned to the water as a rower with the D.C. Strokes Rowing Club. Looking for something new, Ghidini joined a group that gave instruction in American Style ballroom dancing.
“It was a good match for me. As a physician, I am trained for perfection and polish,” Ghidini says. “Dancing takes coordination, balance and an awareness of muscles. It’s very meticulous as is stitching up a patient.”
Two years ago, Ghidini met coach Terry Chasteen of DanceSport Dupont Circle and began training in the International Style of ballroom dancing. A plan was formed to compete in the 2018 Gay Games in Paris, but finding the right partner proved difficult.
Chasteen was line dancing with the D.C. Rawhides and spotted a possibility in the form of Craig Louisy. A partnership was formed with all dance training pointed toward competing in Paris.
Louisy grew up in Saint Lucia and played multiple sports including tennis, karate, basketball and volleyball. Looking for a better life and education, he arrived in the D.C. area to attend Howard University. After medical school at Temple University in Philadelphia, he returned to the area for stints at Washington Hospital Center and the University of Maryland at Baltimore.
Louisy accepted a position as a locum tenens surgeon (traveling surgeon) and spent the next several years traveling through Maryland, South Dakota, Hawaii and North Carolina.
“Traveling so much made me feel disconnected. I couldn’t forge any lasting friendships and I knew it was time to establish some roots,” Louisy says. “When I returned to D.C., I joined the D.C. Rawhides. I always imagined myself on a stage, but my medical career took me in a different direction. The thoughts of dancing and performing were still a part of me.”
Ghidini and Louisy secured their dance steps and began the long hours of training to perfect them under Chasteen’s watchful eye. Not all dancesport competitions accept same-sex couples, so they selected welcoming competitions in Bethesda, New York and Columbus as tune-ups for Paris.
“The competitions were fun, challenging and brought out my competitive side,” Louisy says. “DanceSport has dusted off different parts of my brain and has given me the exact thing I was looking for — social interaction and fun.”
The pair arrived at the Paris Gay Games last August ready for their moment to perform on the international stage. They were entered in the Standard (waltz, tango and quick-step) and Latin (rhumba, jive and cha cha) categories.
When the dust settled, they had captured two silver medals and a bronze.
“It was such a sense of accomplishment after a year of practicing our steps and thinking about shoes, costumes and details,” Ghidini says. “The parade of athletes at the Gay Games opening ceremonies blew me away. Seeing athletes from anti-LGBT countries such as Cuba and Algeria brought tears to my eyes. I had family members there, including my husband, cheering us on. We were interviewed by French television stations and I felt so welcome.”
Louisy agrees.
“It was everything I imagined it would be — an international convening of the LGBT community. It was a very positive environment and you could feel the energy of it,” Louisy says. “It made me proud to be gay and athletic; like I was exposing it to the world that our community comes in all shapes, sizes and colors. It felt important, like I was doing my civic duty.”
With such a great experience behind them, the pair are now training for the upcoming EuroGames in July in Rome.
“After losing our virginity in regard to competing in international sports, I am totally game to keep this going,” Ghidini says. “But it takes two to tango.”
Louisy says he’s in it for the long haul.
“We made a lot of friends from other countries and learned techniques from each other,” Louisy says. “It has given me structure and resulted in only positive things.”
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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