Sports
Washington Blade All Stars series: Stonewall Kickball
Local league draws diverse players seeking queer camaraderie
The Washington Blade All Star series continues to spotlight the journeys of members of the LGBT sports community in Washington. This week we meet two LGBT players who have found their place in Stonewall Kickball.
Everyone has seen the packs of Stonewall Kickball players walking through the streets of D.C. on Sunday afternoons. With their colorful team shirts, they’re hard to miss as they make their way to the post-game events. After moving into the District, Upen noticed them and a quick Google search showed an upcoming
Upen’s work with Amazon had brought him to the area in 2010 and he had been living near Dulles Airport. He was finding many challenges to making friends, especially gay ones. He showed up to a Stonewall Kickball new player event not really sure what to expect.
“I walked in and it was a really warm environment. I ended up joining a new team that was forming,” Upen says. “This was a chance for something different. I had nothing to lose and potentially a lot to gain.”
Growing up in Mumbai, India, Upen played soccer until middle school. He began to distance himself from sports when he realized he was different from other boys. That awareness made sports feel intimidating.
After receiving his undergraduate degree in India, Upen moved to Austin in 2003 to pursue his
Before coming to America, Upen had never heard of kickball. First up in his Stonewall Kickball experience was learning the rules and nuances of the sport.
“I really had to play catch-up on terminology and strategy. I’m still learning in my third season and I love the game,” Upen says. “There is a lot of specialization in various positions with different skill sets needed to excel. I feel like I have found my spot in right field.”
Upen has also played in Stonewall Dodgeball and Stonewall Yoga, both of which have added to the many life lessons he has learned along the way.
“Stonewall has provided me with a sense of community and I like that we are all working together towards a common goal,” Upen says. “One good thing about sports is that they are also a mechanism for growing as a person. I’ve discovered you can be friends with anyone and it feels really great.”
Vic Jones played a little bit of everything growing up in Lake Elsinore, Calif. — basketball, soccer, karate, baseball and football. He ran track and cross country in high school along with being a band kid as a drum major and saxophone player.
Band and sports taught him a lot about leadership and balancing multiple things in life, but he would leave both behind when he arrived at Howard University at 18.
“I thought I would walk onto the track team and join band, but everything was different,” Jones says. “I was intimidated by going to a black school. I was used to being the only black person.”
Jones did join a step club at Howard but focused on his studies to earn his Ph.D in clinical psychology. He is now working as a postdoctoral fellow with the DC VA Medical Center.
He joined Stonewall Dodgeball in 2015 with a friend before moving on to Stonewall Kickball the following year. The kickball league sparked a competitive streak and he fell in love with the sport.
“I made some amazing friends that made me feel comfortable,” Jones says. “I never realized that losing could be so fun when the loss comes from a good competition.”
Jones started meeting other players who were just as competitive and began joining other leagues. He is currently playing on three kickball leagues and is a member of a travel team.
One of his Stonewall Kickball teams, Alpha Q Up, has won the title at the last two Sin City Classic tournaments in Las Vegas. This summer members are hoping to continue their success at the Stonewall Sports National Tournament in Raleigh.
“It’s great to be branching out and playing people who are better players. Each team I have been on has been unique with its own vibe and culture,” Jones says. “It’s nice to reach that level of confidence and trust and know that everyone is just as dedicated as you are, giving 110 percent. We all put in the work and it pays off.”
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.’”
Attitude! French ice dancers nail ‘Vogue’ routine
Philippines Supreme Court rules same-sex couples can co-own property
Disney’s Gay Days ‘has not been canceled’ despite political challenges
Pride flag removed from Stonewall Monument as Trump targets LGBTQ landmarks
Capital Pride wins anti-stalking order against local activist
LGBTQ Venezuelans in Colombia uncertain about homeland’s future
D.C. bar Rush facing eviction on charge of failing to pay rent
Blade, Pride House LA announce 2028 Olympics partnership
D.C. non-profits find creative ways to aid the unhoused amid funding cuts
Calendar: February 6-12
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