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SPORTS ISSUE 2019: Trans women face many hurdles in quest to compete fairly
Testosterone levels, hormones, evolving policies, anti-trans bias among complicating factors
LGBT issues have never been easy — marriage, military service, AIDS, you name it, no gain came without a fight. But if, as is commonly posited, trans rights lag a good 10 or more years behind gay and lesbian advances, perhaps the thorniest issue of all is fair competition for trans women and their cis women opponents, in both recreational and elite sport.
Imagine that women’s sports had never become “a thing” and all adults competed against each other. In figure skating, for example, only three women have landed quad jumps in competition, yet no male singles skater today can be remotely competitive without multiple quads in his arsenal (Nathan Chen landed six at the 2018 Olympics yet failed to medal).
Yes, Billie Jean King (a lesbian) famously beat Bobby Riggs in the 1973 “Battle of the Sexes” in tennis, but she was 29 and he was 55. What would happen if Michael Phelps and Katie Ledecky (swimming) or Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams (tennis) were to face off in the pool or on the court?
Perhaps more realistically, what would happen if Chen, Phelps or Djokovic came out as trans, opted out of hormone replacement therapy and competed as women? Some LGBT advocates say even suggesting such a scenario is transphobic or, at best, displays a gross misunderstanding of the issue. But it’s a question being asked by many.
The International Olympic Committee changed its policy in early 2016 to allow trans women to compete provided they demonstrate their testosterone level has been below a certain level for at least one year prior to their first competition. It supplants the previous 2003 policy that required both gender reassignment surgery and two years of hormone therapy (trans men are allowed to compete without restriction).
Chris Mosier, a trans male athlete and creator of transathlete.com, a resource site for trans sports advocacy at all levels, says the debate has been unfair and overheated.
“We’ve had several Olympic games since the policy has been in place for trans athletes,” says the 38-year-old Mosier, who in 2015 became the first openly trans man to make a Men’s U.S. National Team when he qualified for the Spring Duathlon team. “We’re talking something like 50,000 Olympians have passed through and not a single trans athlete or single trans woman has participated. The fears people have and the stereotypes and misconceptions they’re putting out there about trans women dominating sports just simply haven’t happened.”
That’s also the argument of trans activist/author Brynn Tannehill whose book “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Trans” came out in 2018. She points out that there has not been a single trans athlete dominator since the Olympic policy change or since the NCAA changed its policy to allow trans people to compete sans surgery in 2011. She claims a year of testosterone removal is “sufficient to remove competitive advantage.”
But some cis athletes have balked at getting beaten by trans women competitors. And they’re not just complaining — some are taking legal action. Elsewhere, governing bodies in various sports at all levels are either facing or have faced challenges in how to keep their eligibility policies current and trans-inclusive. That collides with the widely held trans argument that what a trans person has done or not done by way of hormone replacement therapy or gender reassignment surgery is a personal matter that doesn’t make them more or less a woman or man than those at other stages of transition.
Others say trans bias is something impossible to ignore or downplay because it’s so rampant.
“There will always be people who will say a trans female athlete is cheating when she wins or when she doesn’t win, say, ‘She just didn’t try hard enough,’” says gay sports filmmaker David McFarland (“Alone in the Game”). “People are looking for a reason to discriminate against trans people in sport, that’s a given.”
Connecticut controversy
Selina Soule, a 16-year-old runner at Glastonbury High School in Glastonbury, Conn., is frustrated. She says she’s suffered because trans competitors in her conference — Terry Miller of Bloomfield High and Andraya Yearwood of Cromwell High — have been allowed to compete no questions asked against she and her fellow cis women runners.
Miller won the State Open 200-meter title for the second straight year in 2019 and won the Class S titles in the 100 and 200, as well as the New England 200-meter championship. Yearwood, who is also transgender, finished third in the 100 meters in Class S and fourth in the 100 in the State Open.
Subsequently Soule wasn’t able to compete in the New England regional Championships where she would have been seen by college scouts. Miller and Yearwood have won 15 women’s state championships since the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CFAC) changed its policy to allow them to compete as women. Conference leaders say they’re simply following state law.
“The CIAC is committed to providing transgender student athletes with equal opportunities to participate in CIAC athletic programs consistent with their gender identity,” its guidebook reads. Connecticut is one of 19 states that has similar laws.
“I am very happy for these athletes and I fully support them for being true to themselves and having the courage to do what they believe in,” Soule said in a Fox News interview. “But in athletics, it’s an entirely different situation. It’s scientifically proven that males are built to be physically stronger than females. It’s unfair to put someone who is biologically a male who has not undergone anything in terms of hormone therapy against cisgender girls.”
Miller and Yearwood have declined to state publicly what, if any, hormone therapy or testosterone suppression — more on that later — they have undergone.
Soule told the Wall Street Journal the experience has been demoralizing.
“It’s just really frustrating and heartbreaking because we all train extremely hard to shave off just fractions of a second off of our time and these athletes can do half the amount of work that we do and it doesn’t matter,” she said. “We have no chance of winning.”
“It’s definitely a complicated issue,” Soule’s mother Bianca, told the Blade in a brief phone interview. “You have to compete based on the physical abilities you were born with, if you want to call it that. That’s why we separate the two genders. If there were no differences, there would never have been a women’s sports. Unfortunately our trans girls are caught in the middle. The rule is the problem. I tried to contact our Connecticut association to try to look into it, even meet with one of the trans girls’ fathers to try to understand and come up with a solution but we were met with only shut doors. The frustrating part has been the refusal of the athletic bodies to even consider and listen to our side of it.”
Yearwood and Miller issued statements through the ACLU. “I will continue to fight for all trans people to compete and participate consistent with (whom) we are,” Miller wrote. “There is a long history of excluding black girls from sport and policing our bodies. I am a runner and I will keep running and keep fighting for my existence, my community and my rights.”
“I will never stop running,” Yearwood wrote. “I hope that the next generation of trans youth doesn’t have to fight the fights that I have. I hope they can be celebrated when they succeed, not demonized.”
“It is heartbreaking to see yet another attack on trans youth for simply participating in activities alongside their peers,” Chase Strangio, ACLU staff attorney added. “Discrimination on the basis of sex extends to trans people. Girls who are transgender are girls.”
A legal group called Alliance Defending Freedom (it calls itself a “conservative Christian nonprofit”) filed a complaint in June with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights on behalf of Soule and two of her teammates claiming they have “been negatively impacted by the policy.”
“One of these male athletes now holds 10 records inside the state of Connecticut that were once held by 10 individual girls established over the course of about a 20-year period so it’s fundamentally unfair to allow biological males to step into women’s sports and frankly dominate them and take away opportunities not just to medal, but to be on the podium and advance to the next level of competition and even compete for scholarships for young women like Selena,” Christiana Holcomb, an Alliance Defending Freedom attorney, told Tucker Carlson on Fox News.
“It’s grotesque and insane and it hurts women and girls,” Carlson said on the broadcast.
The issue is especially acute among high school athletes because students are often just figuring out whom they are, how they identify and are less likely to have time logged living fully transitioned lives.
Dawn Stacey Ennis, managing editor of OutSports and a trans woman, says the trans-girls-bumping-cis-girls-off-the-medal-stand argument is misleading because college coaches recruiting look at time, not placement.
“They don’t care who placed first, second or third — all colleges look at and what every coach has told me is that the time is what matters because time is immutable, you can’t change that. It doesn’t matter if you ran against a trans person or not,” Ennis says.
She also says Soule and her representatives aren’t being totally forthcoming.
“I talked to her mother and watched the video and when she said (Selina) didn’t get to qualify for the event in Boston, she sort of fibbed a little bit. She didn’t qualify in that event, but she did qualify in another event. But, of course, that’s not a good headline. It’s much better to say, ‘I didn’t get to go because of these girls.’ … They have to make the trans girls out to be the boogyemen because somebody else has to be responsible for her losing. It has to be someone else’s fault, but that’s not what sports is about.”
Tennis legend Martina Navratilova, a lesbian, was heavily criticized for a Sunday Times op-ed she wrote in February arguing trans women should not be allowed to compete against cis women.
“It’s insane and it’s cheating,” she wrote. “I am happy to address a transgender woman in whatever form she prefers, but I would not be happy to compete against her. It would not be fair. … To put the argument at its most basic: a man can decide to be female, take hormones if required by whatever sporting organization is concerned, win everything in sight and perhaps earn a small fortune, and then reverse his decision and go back to making babies if he so desires,” she wrote.
She was heavily criticized for her comments, removed from the advisory board of Athlete Ally (an LGBT athlete advocacy group) and called out by trans activists such as cyclist Rachel McKinnon (the first trans woman to win a world track cycling title in Oct., 2018), who called Navratilova’s concern a “wild fantasy worry that is an irrational fear of something that doesn’t happen … transphobia.”
Navratilova wrote of being frustrated with “what seems to be a growing tendency among transgender activists to denounce anyone who argues against them and to label them all as transphobes.”
She backpedaled somewhat, apologizing for using the word “cheating,” but called for a debate on the issue based “not on feeling or emotion but science,” BBC News reported.
How are other sports organizing bodies handling the issue?
Western states solution
One group that’s done about as well as anyone it appears is the Western States 100-Mile Endurance Run whose board members this year adopted a trans-inclusive policy that accepts “a runner’s self-declared gender at registration … at face value,” the New York Times reports.
“If, however, a finisher in the top 10 or among the top three in their age group is challenged, race management may ask the runner for documentation that they have undergone medically supervised hormone treatment for gender transition for at least a year before the race,” the Times reports.
The issue arose last December when Grace Fisher, a trans runner who favors ultradistance competition, was selected through the race’s traditional lottery system for the 100-mile ultramarathon that takes place in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California every June.
If a trans runner is challenged and it’s upheld by race management, their placement may be bumped but they would be allowed to keep their finisher’s buckle. It ended up not being an issue for Fisher (she came in 20th) but she says she appreciates the care organizers put into their policy.
“They were so concerned about me and wanted to ensure my safety,” says the 38-year-old Hancock, Md., resident, a federal employee with United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. “They went out of their way to welcome me and wish me good luck. … It was quite amazing, but I don’t think the other runners really picked up on it. They just saw me as another female.”
Fisher acknowledges the issue is dicier on the high school level.
“I think we do need more research, but there are so few of us, it’s hard to get more,” she says. “I think personally, and this may not be popular in the trans community, but yeah, the high school situation needs to be looked at more. That’s such a tricky situation because one, they’re teenagers so their hormones are raging whether they’re cis or if they’ve started to transition, they may still have an advantage. I just haven’t seen any science on it so I’m hesitant to state any opinion at this point.”
There’s a bounty of information on the topic available from all kinds of sources, from thorough, balanced studies in popular magazines such as Men’s Health’s March piece “The Truth About Trans Athletes;” to folksy, readable blogs such as “On Transgender Athletes and Performance Advantages” earlier this year at sportsscientists.com; to scholarly research in medical journals such as “Sport and Transgender People: a Systematic Review of the Literature Relating to Sport Participation and Competitive Sport Policies,” published online two years ago on the National Institute of Health website, which studied eight other articles and reviewed 31 sport policies.
The findings were — perhaps surprisingly for some — more trans validating than one might expect.
“In relation to sport-related physical activity, this review found the lack of inclusive and comfortable environments to be the primary barrier to participation for transgender people.” Also, the “lack of inclusive and comfortable environments (is) the primary barrier to participation for transgender people. … transgender people had a mostly negative experience in competitive sports because of the restrictions of the sport’s policy placed on them.”
Researchers also found “no direct or consistent research suggesting transgender female individuals (or male individuals) have an athletic advantage at any stage of their transition (e.g. cross-sex hormones, gender-confirming surgery) and therefore competitive sport policies that place restrictions on transgender people need to be considered and potentially revised.”
The ‘T’ word
A central — but not total — factor in this discussion is testosterone levels.
The hormone, an androgen is produced in both men and women, but not nearly as much in cis women. It affects the body in many ways.
In men, high levels of testosterone are made in the testes. The adrenal glands make much lower levels above the kidneys. Women produce testosterone in both their adrenal glands and ovaries, but testes in men produced much higher rates: in men, it’s 295 to 1,150 nanograms of testosterone per deciliter of blood while the levels in women are usually in the range of 12-61 nanograms per deciliter of blood, according to the New York Times and other medical sites consulted.
Testosterone also builds both skeletal and cardiac muscle and increases the number of red blood cells. The effects are present whether they’re there naturally or introduced. The effects are amplified further among elite athletes and make a huge difference in performance. Male champions in sports across the board are always faster and stronger than records set by women, although it’s not as simple as it may appear at first: researchers have found it has more of an effect in middle-distance races; it could have been less of a factor for Fischer in the Western States 100.
But the connection between testosterone and athletic performance isn’t always an exact science. When researchers measured the T levels of elite athletes from 15 Olympic sports, more than 25 percent of the men were below the level (10 nanomoles per liter) required of trans Olympic women, according to a study from “Clinical Diabetes and Endocrinology” cited in the aforementioned Men’s Health article. Nearly 7 percent had less than 5 nmol/L and there was significant overlap between male and female athletes. Cis male powerlifters had surprisingly low T levels while cis male track and field athletes were higher.
Further complicating matters is the fact that some cis women rarely but occasionally possess unusually high T levels. Caster Semenya, 28, an elite runner and Olympic champion from South Africa, for instance, has been banned from some races. In May, the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland ruled that women with unusually high T levels (far above the ranges normally seen) cannot compete against other women in some races unless they take drugs to suppress their levels, the New York Times reported.
Men also tend to be on average about 6 inches taller than women. The average U.S. adult male weighs 195 pounds vs. 168 pounds for women. A study from the Applied Physiology journal found that men had an average of 26 pounds more skeletal muscle mass than women and about 40 percent more upper-body and 33 percent more lower-body strength on average.
Fairness factor
So what does fair look like?
Mosier chuckles when asked to ponder the issue with sexism, patriarchy and anti-trans bias taken out of the equation.
“I don’t know what that would look like and I wish I could predict the future,” he says. “But sport is inherently about advantage and that makes people uncomfortable. There are certain advantages a very tall basketball player has. We don’t ask him to chop off a few inches of their height to make a more level playing field. Some people burn lactic acid faster than their competitors. At the 2016 Olympics in Rio, Katie Ledecky, beat her competition by a full pool length but she’s thought of as a once-in-a-lifetime, exceptional athlete but her advantage may be that she is never questioned, but there really needs to be more studies done on what the impact is over time before anyone could start to talk about unfair advantage.”
Not disqualifying certain individuals with extraordinary physical gifts is also commonly used as a rationale for why trans women shouldn’t be punished for physical attributes beyond their control.
“What are they supposed to do, tell these people they can’t compete because their arms are too big or their torsos are too long,” Ennis says. “That’s not fair either. Trans girls may have physical gifts but I would hope those would be advantages that would make cis girls try harder. I don’t think it’s unfair because there are always going to be people who are better than you.”
McFarland agrees.
“It’s an affront to every athlete to be penalized for one’s intrinsic biology,” he says. “Do we tell a really strong female shot putter or discus thrower she’s too strong to compete? Do we have a height cut-off in the NBA? Where would it end?”
But by that argument, why are women’s divisions needed in any sport?
Ennis says no women — cis or trans — want to compete against men. Asking the question, she says, implies skeptics don’t see trans women as true women.
“This idea that some guy’s gonna go put on a wig and a skirt, go dominate the sports world, then go back and start fathering babies, that’s just not what the trans experience is about,” Ennis says.
Mosier says any advantage trans women in theory may have, is negated by the social stigma they endure.
“It has a huge impact on their training and performance,” Mosier says. “People aren’t transitioning to gain a competitive advantage. What they encounter would never offset a gold medal or world championship. They just want to compete. … The footage of some of these track meets and what’s said to the competitors and their parents, its’ really toxic and vile and horrific in so many ways that a young person would have to deal with that lack of understanding.”
(Photo by Zhen Heinemann; courtesy Mosier)
And while some argue that anyone who’s been through a male puberty will on average retain a physical advantage — testosterone doesn’t vastly impact one’s height or reach — Fisher says even that argument is suspect.
“It’s like having a Mustang with a small engine,” Fisher says. “You still have this big car but it just doesn’t have the engine. We lost a lot of muscle mass, probably more than a fit female, but also a lot more bone mass. The muscle-to-mass ratio is lower,” she says. “I don’t really know if trans women have any advantage. I think it’s questionable.”
As one would expect, there’s huge support for trans athletes — both men and women — among LGBT advocacy groups. But the story changes significantly when you loop other stakeholders into the discussion.
Fallon Fox was the first openly trans athlete in MMA history in a 2012-2014 career that included just a single loss. She encountered substantial transphobia in her groundbreaking career but also questions about the fairness of her bouts. During a 2014 fight against Tamikka Brents, Brents suffered a concussion, orbital bone fracture and required seven staples to her head after the first round, which ended the fight. Brents, a lesbian, said after the fight it wasn’t a fair match.
Brents declined a Blade interview request saying she’d put the issue behind her but said at the time that Fox was far stronger than any other women she’d ever fought in a long MMA career.
Fox dismissed the advantage claim in a guest editorial on an MMA news website saying, “I’m a transgender woman. I deserve equal treatment and respect to other types of women. I feel this is so ridiculously unnecessary and horribly mean spirited.”
Elusive consensus
While it’s understandable that consensus eludes the sports world among the Alliance Defending Freedom, Fox News and the like, it’s still thorny because there’s no consensus either among trans people.
Some believe trans athletes should be able to compete without any medical intervention at all, others believe in a physical barometer to gauge trans eligibility while others say there should be a separate league for trans athletes, not a widely held view because of their small numbers. They mostly agree, however, that participation is essential.
Ennis of OutSports says the fact that trans women haven’t emerged as a dominant force in elite sports and even in high school sports don’t win constantly helps support the general push toward trans inclusion.
“If a study were to come out and say conclusively that trans women are physically unbeatable by cisgender women and every cis woman lost every time, I would throw in my hat and say, ‘That’s it, we can’t do it.’ But the facts aren’t in. Cis women do beat trans women. Not every single time, but there’s not one sport in which trans women totally dominate. These two (Connecticut) high school girls are winning competitions, but they don’t win every single one they’re in.”
“No trans person is trying to participate for personal gain,” McFarland says. “They just want to do it in a healthy manner. This idea that people are transitioning just to dominate is something that critics continually get wrong and this ungrounded fear of trans people, that they’ll come in and take over, that’s really the dictionary definition of transphobia. … The current science and data reveals it’s a nonsense argument.”
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D.C. springs back to life with new, returning events
Cherry blossoms, Rehoboth season kickoff, and more on tap
Longer and warmer days are back meaning: It’s time to get out of the house and enjoy Washington D.C.’s many events. Below are a few to check out this spring.
The National Museum of Women in the Arts will host “Making their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection” until Sunday, July 26. This exhibition illustrates women artists’ vital role in abstraction, considers historical contributions, formal and material breakthroughs and intergenerational relationships among women artists over the last eight decades. For more details, visit. NMWA’s website.
Art in the Attic will host a pop-up on Saturday, March 14 at 6 p.m. at 1012 Madison St., Alexandria, Va. There will be a variety of vendors selling products across different modes of art. For more details, visit Eventbrite.
Play Play will host “Indoor Recess – The art of play” on Sunday, March 15 at 2 p.m. This event will embody classic recess energy, including opportunities to build and experience community and connections through games, movement, art stations, and creative freedom. Tickets are $12.51 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.
Spark Social will host “Gay Bar Crawl on U Street” on Friday, March 20 at 7:30 p.m. This will be a fun night out in gay D.C. with other gay people, whether you’re visiting D.C., new to the area, or just looking to expand your social circle. Many crawlers have formed lasting friendships and even romantic relationships after just one night out. Tickets are $35.88 and are available on Eventbrite.
Creative Suitland Arts Center will host “EFFERVESCENT: House of Swann” on Saturday, May 30 at 7 p.m. This will be a gay, good time where we will celebrate love, joy, wellness, and visibility for the LGBTQIA+ community. Tickets start at $17.85 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.
SWAG Works DC will host “Unapologetically Her” on Saturday, March 14 at 2 p.m. at 701 E St., S.E. This event is a powerful celebration of womanhood, resilience, creativity, and self-expression in honor of Women’s History Month. This all-women exhibition highlights the diverse voices, stories, and artistic perspectives of women who create boldly, live authentically, and stand confidently in their truth. This event is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
9:30 Club will host “Gimme Gimme Disco: A Dance Party Inspired by ABBA” on Saturday, March 14 at 6 p.m. There will also be a “Donna Summer Power Hour – The Queen of Disco” segment during this event. It’ll be one hour of music with no skips. Tickets are available on 9:30 Club’s website.
Harder Better Faster Stronger will host “Heated Rivalry Rave” on Friday, March 20 at 9 p.m. at Howard Theatre. This event is open to all ages. Tickets are available on the theater’s website.
CAMP Rehoboth hosts its 25th annual Women’s+ FEST, April 9-12 in Rehoboth Beach, Del. Entertainers include headliner Mina Hartong, a comedian, storyteller, and founder of Lez Out Loud; and singer Yoli Mayor. There are dances, dinners, pickleball, and much more. Details and tickets at camprehoboth.org.
Also in Rehoboth Beach, the Washington Blade’s 19th annual Summer Kickoff Party is set for Friday, May 15 featuring Ashley Biden, who will accept an award on behalf of her brother Beau. State Rep. Claire Snyder-Hall will also speak. More speakers and the venue to be announced soon.
The annual D.C. Cherry Blossom Festival kicks off March 21 at DAR Constitution Hall and culminates with Petalpalooza on April 4, the day-long, outdoor street party with music and art, stretching across Navy Yard, and ending with fireworks over the Anacostia River.
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‘Queer Eye’ star Dorriene Diggs on life before and after appearing on hit show
Emotional January episode highlighted 40-year love affair with partner
Dorriene Diggs, 70, whose 40-year relationship with her domestic partner, Diane until Diane’s passing in 2020, the couple’s tense relationship with their respective parents, and Dorriene’s current living arrangement with her straight sister Jo, were the focus of a final season episode of the popular TV series “Queer Eye.”
In a recent interview with the Washington Blade, Diggs told of how her appearance on the show has impacted her life. She elaborated on the many aspects of her life experiences that she told to the five “Queer Eye” co-hosts who interviewed her and her sister in their D.C. home.
Although her parents and her partner’s parents, who have since passed away, were not accepting of their relationship, Diggs has said most of her family members at this time reacted positively to her appearance on the show.
“They loved it,” she told the Blade. “Yes, everybody that saw the show called me and said they loved the show, they really enjoyed themselves watching it.”
Through an arrangement with D.C.’s Rainbow History Project, the “Queer Eye” show featuring Diggs and her sister was presented in a special screening on a large video screen at the D.C. History Center in January.
“Dorriene, a 70-year-old Black lesbian living in Washington, D.C., had spent decades building a life with her partner while navigating silence within her own family,” a “Queer Eye” statement announcing the episode on Diggs states.
“The Fab Five did not arrive to introduce Dorriene to herself, but to help ensure her story was finally heard in full,” the statement says.
Blade: Can you tell us how your appearance on the “Queer Eye” program came about? How did they find out about you?
Diggs: You know, I still don’t have all the details. I think it was my niece, Missy. And she knows somebody there from “Queer Eye.”
Blade: So, did you first learn about it when someone from “Queer Eye” contacted you?
Diggs: No, the “Queer Eye” guy knocked on my bedroom door and started talking. I was in my bedroom watching television and the next thing I know my door opened up and there was Karamo [Karamo Brown, one of the “Queer Eye” co-hosts] with his big black cowboy hat on, opening the door grinning. … They contacted Jo first. And when they came here, they realized there was a gay woman in the house, too. Because my name was not mentioned at first. After they came here, they learned about me, because when Missy reached out to them, she reached out to them about Jo. But that doesn’t bother me. This was all about Jo in the beginning, and not me. … They started talking to me and Jo. And he said, Dorriene, ‘you’ve done so much for so many people, it’s time for someone to do something for you.’ That’s what they said. He said, ‘this is the day we’re doing it for you.’
And so, they put me and my sister up in a hotel for a week. They gave us a personal driver to take us anywhere we wanted to go. And then they took us to a bunch of places. We didn’t know why they were doing all of this. We had no idea that they were renovating the house and renovating our bedrooms. We had no idea.
Blade: What was your reaction when you saw the home renovation?
Diggs: It was amazing. And they bought us all new complete wardrobes – clothes, shoes. But most of the stuff they got me I gave away to a women’s shelter. But it was so nice. Actually, to meet the guys. I’ve been watching the show for 10 years. I have watched it from the beginning. And actually, it brought me and my sister closer – really. We’re closer now than we’ve ever been. She’s my baby sister – not the baby, but next to the baby. She’s the younger one.
Blade: What has been the reaction to your appearance on the show? Do more people now recognize you?
Diggs: Yes, yes. I’m getting phone calls and it’s almost like I’m a celebrity. And I don’t want people to make a fuss over me. All the things I did I did from the heart. I really did. And I don’t want people to think I’m more than I am. I’m just a good Christian woman that believes in giving back.
And I do. God gives me help giving. That’s what I do. And I don’t want anything in return from anyone. You know, because I know what it means to not to have. I know what it means to go to bed hungry, with no food. Going to school with holes in your shoes. I know that. I know that feeling. I’ve been there. And I promised myself as a kid I would never live like this again. And when I got bold enough to leave home, I left home at 14, and I moved in with a drag queen. Damen was his name.
Blade: Did your appearance on the show change your life and your relationship with your sister?
Diggs: Yeah, yeah, it actually did. We are actually closer now than we’ve ever been. Because, like I said, I moved away from home early and I never went back. My parents had a problem with my lifestyle. They really did. My mom looked at me with such hatred. When I was old enough to say goodbye, I never looked back. And to come back around now in the last few years after Diane died, that’s when I came back here.
And at one point I stayed with my nephew Todd and his wife – but he got killed in a car accident. I couldn’t stay at his house anymore. So, then I called Jo and told her I need to get out of here. And without hesitating she came and picked me up and brought me to her home. And I’ve been here ever since.
Blade: Can you tell a little about when it came about and how you met your partner?
Diggs: We lived on 18th Avenue in condos. I just bought one. Hers was above mine. I bought the bottom one. When my brother came over, she was getting out of her car. She was driving a Vega. And I turned to my brother and I said – this is the God’s honest truth – I said Keith, that’s the woman I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. Just like that. And he started laughing. He said, girl you’re crazy. I said I know I’m crazy, Keith, but I’m telling you that woman right there is who I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.
Blade: And when was that?
Diggs: It was 1980 actually. And then I started going to the laundry room to do my laundry. So I started talking to her. She said, ‘I’m not speaking to you.’ Isaid ‘why not?’ She said ‘because you’re nothing but a female gigolo.’ And I said I’m not dating anymore. I’m waiting for you. ‘No, you’re too fast for me.’ I said, ‘well, I’m not giving up.’
And I didn’t give up. So, I was playing an album one day and she knocked on the door and asked what I was playing, I think. I said you liked that. She said yeah. I said OK, I’ll bring it upstairs and we can listen to it together. So, when I went up there to her apartment that day and whenever I went up there, I never left.
Blade: So, your partner’s name was Diane?
Diggs: Yes, Ruth Diane Robinson. But she hated the name Ruth. So, the only people who called her Ruth were at work, the people she worked with. Everybody else called her Diane.
Blade: And how many years were you together?
Diggs: Forty. Forty years together
Blade: And where were you living with her most of the time?
Diggs: We lived in Hagerstown the longest, Hagerstown, Md. And so, if Diane hadn’t died I probably still would have been in our house in Hagerstown.
Blade: Can you tell me a little about what you were doing career wise during those years?
Diggs: I do computers. I used to do computers. And before that I cooked. I love to cook like my mom. And then I wanted to do something else. So, I taught myself computers. I taught myself how to build computers and stuff. So, then I got my own computer business called Ida One Computer Consulting. And so, we helped build computers for people.
Blade: Around when was this, in the 1980a or 1990s?
Diggs: Yes, in the 1980s. I think I stopped I would say around ’96, when I stopped. Because we both said we were going to retire at 55. And we did. We both retired at 55. And then she started diabetes. Every day I had to give her an injection because she was afraid of needles. She couldn’t give it to herself. So, I had to give her an injection every day One time, I don’t remember when, she had a mild stroke. And I had to take care of her. I’ve always taken care of her. And I don’t regret it. I never regretted it. It’s taking care of the one you love.
Blade: When was it that she passed away?
Diggs: In 2020. I found her on the kitchen floor.
Blade: How did your family and your extended family react to your relationship with Diane?
Diggs: Well, her family, oh my God, they hated me – her mother the worst. Because I put a stop to them treating her really bad. I told her mother – I said never in my life – my mother raised me well. Never disrespect someone’s mother. I said but this time I’m going to disrespect you because you are going to start treating Diane like you ought to. This is a wonderful woman and you and your son and you it’s always about your son. You never, ever say anything good about your daughter.
I said it isn’t going to happen again. You’re never going to disrespect her again. I said you take a damn good look at her because you’ll never see her again. I meant that. I grabbed Diane. I said it’s time to go. They don’t care about you.
Blade: Can you tell a little about your family?
Diggs: Yeah, I’m a triplet sister. So, it’s Dorriene, Chorine, and Chrissy — we are the triplets. So, my mom had a set of twins and a set of triplets within nine months. One of the twins died at birth. So, the other twin is Margaret.
Blade: So then how did your family react to you and Jo being on “Queer Eye”?
Diggs: Most of my family really had no problem with it.
Blade: Were you out to them?
Diggs: Oh yeah. I was never in the closet. I didn’t give a damn what people felt about me, sweetheart. I really didn’t. I didn’t care. Because I was going to be me. And for people who didn’t like it, I wasn’t living for them, I was living for me. I’ve always been out. I had a brother who was also gay, Marvin. God rest his soul, too. But he stayed in the closet. He was in the closet until he was about 55 years old.
But everything I said on the show was the truth – my account. The things that I went through with family … You can’t tell me how I felt. If they try to make mom and dad out as perfect, they weren’t perfect. They were the worst parents. That’s my account of it.
So yes, everything I said on that interview was the truth. That’s one thing people who know me know – I do not lie.
Blade: What are some of the things you like to do these days?
Diggs: I’m a sports lover. I love sports. So, my baseball season is getting ready to get started. Baseball is my favorite sport. Yes, I love baseball. I like the statistics of it. And watching the guys. I wish they had a women’s professional baseball team, honestly. … I’m a D.C. sports fan. The Wizards, the Nationals, the Mystics, the Caps. … And see, I’m a diehard Redskins fan and I refuse to call them the Commanders. They’re the Redskins. They will always be the Redskins to me. I love my sports teams.
Blade: Can you tell a little about the history of the house where you and Jo now live and where they did the filming of the “Queer Eye” show?
Diggs: Jo had a house on 17th Street, I think it was Northeast because it was over there by H Street, N.E. And I think somebody wanted to buy her house. I don’t know why she moved. So, she found this house. Because she wanted to buy something where she could buy a house straight out. She didn’t want a mortgage on another house.
Blade: What are your thoughts on being on the last season of “Queer Eye?”
Diggs: Yeah, we were the last ones. We took it out with a bang, me and Jo. That was it.
Blade: Can you say how you and Jo appearing on the show impacted your life?
Diggs: I don’t know. I’m the same person. I’ve been getting calls from people saying I saw you on the show. And friends who I haven’t seen in years have been calling. … So yeah, the show, people I haven’t seen and talked to in years have been calling. I think that’s a good thing.
a&e features
35 years after ‘Truth or Dare,’ Slam is still dancing
Salim Gauwloos on Madonna, HIV, and why he almost didn’t audition for Blond Ambition Tour
Most gay men of a certain age remember “the kiss.”
It was the moment Madonna’s dancers Salim Gauwloos and Gabriel Trupin locked lips in the hit 1991 documentary film “Truth or Dare,” which is celebrating its 35th anniversary this spring.
The kiss was hot, but what made it groundbreaking is that it appeared in a mainstream Hollywood movie that screened in suburban multiplexes across the country. This wasn’t an obscure art house film. The movie, and tour on which it was based, received months of breathless media attention all over the world for bold expressions of female empowerment and queer visibility. Madonna was threatened with arrest in Toronto for simulating masturbation on stage and Pope John Paul II urged Catholics to boycott the show, triggering a media firestorm.
“Truth or Dare” was billed as a behind-the-scenes documentary of the tour, but it quickly became clear that the real star of the show wasn’t Madonna, but rather her colorful troupe of seven backup dancers, six of whom identified as gay: Kevin Stea, Carlton Wilborn, Luis Xtravaganza Camacho, Jose Gutierez Xtravaganza, Gauwloos, and Trupin; Oliver Crumes III identifies as straight.
We saw them party and march in the New York City Pride parade. They were unabashedly queer at a dangerous time — before protease inhibitors began to stem the AIDS plague and before most celebrities and politicians embraced the gay community in any real way. Being out in 1991 carried major risks to career and reputation.
Enter Gauwloos, one of those brave dancers who vogued his way into the hearts of countless gay men entranced by his handsome looks, his stage presence, and dance skills.
Gauwloos — known then and now as “Slam”— sat down with the Blade to talk Madonna, the lasting impact of “Truth or Dare,” the public disclosure of his HIV status, and plans for a new book on his life.
His story is fascinating — from growing up in Europe to dancing in New York to landing the gig of a lifetime with Madonna. He performed on that tour while secretly HIV positive and went without medical treatment for 10 years because he was living in the United States as an undocumented immigrant. Not even Madonna knew of his HIV status. Two other dancers on the tour were also HIV positive but no one talked about it. Ironically, Madonna was singing “Express Yourself” and advocating for condom use during her concerts yet backstage three of her dancers were secretly positive.
“A lot of people were dying so I wasn’t going to tell Madonna I had HIV,” said Slam, now 57. “And the others didn’t either. It wasn’t the moment to do it. She used to make speeches about Keith Haring and AIDS and I thought it’s going to be me next.”
Gabriel Trupin died of AIDS in 1995. Slam was diagnosed at age 18 in 1987, a frightening time when a positive test result often meant a death sentence. He booked the “Blond Ambition Tour” at age 21 after moving to New York. His friends encouraged him to audition but Slam resisted because he wasn’t a big Madonna fan.
“It was crazy, everyone wanted that job,” he said, “but I wanted to dance with Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul.” He listened to his friends and shortly after the audition, Slam received a call from Madonna herself inviting him to join the tour.
“We all wanted to be stars but not even Madonna knew how big that tour would become. The way it was choreographed and directed, the stars aligned. … It never looks dated even today.”
The world tour kicked off in Japan in April 1990 then moved to the United States and Europe, stirring controversy wherever it went. There was the iconic cone bra; the aforementioned simulated masturbation during “Like a Virgin”; and religious imagery that offended many Catholic groups and the Vatican.
And the controversy didn’t end with the tour. Cameras were rolling throughout the tour for what Slam thought would be a “video memory” for Madonna. But as the tour unfolded, director Alek Keshishian reportedly became more interested in what was happening behind the scenes so plans for mere tour footage were expanded into a full documentary.
“We were young and partying and didn’t really know what was going on,” Slam said. “You live in this celebrity bubble and you sign a paper – I don’t even know what I signed.”
In 1992, Kevin, Oliver, and Gabriel sued Madonna for invasion of privacy and fraud claiming she used some footage without their consent. They claim they were told nothing would be included in the film that they didn’t want to be seen. In one specific incident, Gabriel alleged that he told producers he didn’t want the scene of him kissing Slam to be in the film as he wasn’t fully out.
“Gabriel was forcibly outed,” in the movie, Kevin said in a 2016 interview.
Slam did not join his colleagues in the lawsuit.
“I couldn’t sue because I was illegal but I wasn’t ever going to sue,” Slam said. “I’m not a suing kind of person. But good for them, they fought for it and won. A lot of people don’t have the balls to sue Madonna.” The suit was settled two years later for an undisclosed sum.
“We were all conflicted about the kiss,” he said with a laugh. “The kiss, oh my God, my boyfriend is going to kill me! Belgian stress!”
Beyond worrying about his boyfriend’s reaction, Slam had concerns about the impact of being openly gay on his modeling career.
“In 1990, you couldn’t get high fashion campaigns as an openly gay model,” he said. “I was worried about that. I couldn’t get a campaign because I was gay. My agency told me to say I was straight and it was just a game.”
In 2016, pegged to the 25th anniversary of “Truth or Dare,” the surviving six dancers filmed a documentary about their lives post-Madonna titled “Strike A Pose.” In it, Slam publicly revealed his HIV status for the first time in an emotional scene with his former colleagues.
“I found the strength to tell the world I have HIV,” he recalls. “I was scared but I felt brave. The outcome and messages were beautiful. After I saw ‘Strike A Pose,’ I knew we gave people hope. And not just for gay people.”
He was infected in 1987 but didn’t get treated until 1997. After the tour ended, he said he went into a depression and his agency dropped him.
“I was partying too much after the tour,” he recalls. “I made a decision to live as an illegal alien.” In 1997, Slam collapsed and was rushed to the hospital with pneumonia.
“They started treating me and thank God the new HIV drugs were out, the cocktails, it took me a couple months to get better.”
Madonna didn’t participate in “Strike A Pose” and Slam said he hasn’t seen or spoken to her since the end of the tour. He said he had no idea of the impact “Truth or Dare” would have.
“You look at this movie in 1991 and you don’t think it’s going to be such a big thing and 35 years later it’s still helping people,” he said. “It was helpful for people who felt alone at that time. It was such an important documentary.
“I don’t think younger gay people realize how important Madonna was to gay and queer visibility — she was a big part of it. We showed the world it’s OK to be gay and that was the great message of this movie.”
He noted that, decades later, many of his friends have transgender kids and that queer culture is represented in much of mainstream pop culture.
“It’s amazing how far we’ve come,” he said. “I know we’ll always be marginalized but we have come so far. I’m really proud of our community. The current nightmare will be over and I do believe that things will get better.”
Referencing President Trump’s attacks on the LGBTQ community and crackdown on immigration, Slam described the situation in the U.S. today as “sad.”
“Everything is such a mess,” he said. “Some of these people have lived here 30-40 years and they take you out of your home. I can’t even imagine. It breaks my heart. When I was illegal it was a different story.”
Slam met his husband, Facundo Gabba, who’s from Argentina, in 2000, and he helped him get a legal case together to win citizenship. He filed a case in 2001 and was told there was a 99 percent chance he wouldn’t be permitted to stay in the United States because they weren’t allowing HIV-positive immigrants to remain in the country. But he got his green card anyway in 2005 and became a U.S. citizen in 2012.
Today, Slam and Gabba live in Brooklyn, though they travel a lot because “I can’t take the cold.” The couple married in Argentina in 2010 and in the U.S. in 2016.
Slam is still dancing and working as a choreographer. He’s teaching at a contemporary dance festival in Vienna in July and even offers online lessons via Salimdans.com.
As a longtime HIV survivor, Slam is dedicated to a healthful lifestyle.
“You have to keep moving; when you move you stay healthy,” he says. “Dance heals everything. I do yoga, I eat healthy and clean as possible. I don’t watch much TV … I try to stay healthy and positive. If I absorb all of the negativity I would be sick.”
In addition to his ongoing work in dance and choreography, Slam is in the early stages of writing a book about his extraordinary life and pioneering career.
“I always knew I had a book inside of me. I want to talk about my HIV status. I know I can inspire more people. I want to tell even more secrets in the book; secrets are a poison so I want to tell everything.”
Among those secrets, he notes, is a desire to write about his strict Muslim father and the years he spent as an undocumented immigrant in America.
“Those are the things I want to talk about, the struggles. It’s a love story, hope and resilience. I know it will help people.”
As for his friends from the tour, Slam says he remains in contact with Gabriel’s mother and José Xtravaganza is his best friend. Baltimore’s Center Stage theater is currently developing a new musical about Xtravaganza’s life. And Slam said he occasionally talks to Oliver, though “he still can’t pronounce Sandra Bernhard’s name.”
At the end of our interview, Slam indulged a round a rapid fire questions:
• Favorite song to perform in the “Blond Ambition” tour? “Express Yourself.”
• Aside from Madonna, who was your favorite artist you worked with? Toni Braxton in “Aida” on Broadway.
• Favorite Madonna song? “Live to Tell”
• Favorite Madonna video? “Bedtime Stories”
• What’s more stressful: performing in a concert or performing on the VMAs? “Both, because we always had to be perfect.”
• Did you go to Madonna’s recent “Celebration” tour? “I didn’t see the show but I saw clips online.”
• What do you remember most about performing “Vogue” at the VMAs? “It was nerve-racking for them to flip those fans.”
• When was the last time you vogued? “I teach classes so a couple weeks ago.”
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