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Straight players find love in LGBT sports community

A relationship blossoms during Gay Flag Football League play

Published

5 years ago

on

Gay Flag Football League, Washington Blade, gay news
Jorge Membreño and Amanda Livingstone met through the DCGFFL. (Photo courtesy the couple)

Inclusion is a longstanding tradition in the LGBT sports community. In a progressive city like Washington, D.C., one of the results of that tradition is that straight players are participating in LGBT sports teams and leagues.

The reason that the tradition works is because LGBT sports teams and leagues value each player for who they are and what they bring to the community.

Sharing sports experiences and being a part of the same community has led to multiple same-sex sports couples and multiple same-sex sports marriages across the LGBT sports teams and leagues in D.C. 

It was only a matter of time before the same thing happened to the straight players.

Amanda Livingstone grew up all over the United States and graduated high school in Texas. She refers to herself as a lanky kid who outgrew the sport of gymnastics. She loved the team dynamic of cheerleading and stuck with that through high school.

While attending Loyola University Chicago, she picked up intramural volleyball and soccer on her way to a bachelor’s in anthropology and another in international studies. She earned her master’s degree from the University of Denver in international human rights.

Livingstone moved to D.C. in 2013 for a summer fellowship with Save the Children. It didn’t turn into the full-time position she was hoping for and she ended up working at Primal Fitness.

“I was on my own in a new city, wiping down gym equipment with my shiny master’s degree,” says Livingstone. “Clients kept coming in and sharing their experiences about the DC Gay Flag Football League.”

With no football experience, she went to a team brunch and a new player workshop. She was drafted into the DC Gay Flag Football League (DCGFFL) in the fall of 2013 and has played every season since joining.

“I was nervous at first, but everyone seemed so comfortable with each other and they were so supportive of this straight woman that just wandered in,” Livingstone says. “I am my best self when I am running around outside and the ensemble personality that is the DCGFFL is a great fit for me. I was aware that I was a guest in someone else’s home.”

Livingstone would go on to become the first straight person and the first woman to serve on the DCGFFL board. She also received the Legends Award, which recognizes a player’s athletic skills and dedication to the league.

“I like to think that I have become quite a good rusher these days,” says Livingstone. “I value the DCGFFL because there are no gender rules. This league is about equality. There are no mandated playing times for either gender and that helps to showcase women’s talents in an equal way.”

She admits that flag football isn’t for everyone and points to her broken nose, stitches and broken fingers as reference points. Undeterred, she joined the DCGFFL’s women’s travel team, the DC Senators, in 2015. This October will be her fifth Gay Bowl appearance on the team.

In the summer of 2016, one of Livingstone’s fellow DCGFFL board members invited his friend who was visiting from Boston to a social at Nellie’s. His name was Jorge and he had a girlfriend. An introduction was made.

Jorge Membreño was born in D.C. and raised in Manassas. His family came to the United States from El Salvador when his mother was three months pregnant with him. Spanish was their first language at home.

Growing up he played soccer through high school and competed in soccer travel leagues. He continued with intramural soccer while attending Christopher Newport University.

While earning his undergraduate degree in psychology, he picked up music as a minor. He was singing in their chamber choir and auditioned for the select ensemble, which led to performances in Austria and Italy. He furthered his skills by becoming classically trained in opera and joining the opera chorus.

Membreño moved back to the area after college in 2008 and was working with a lobbying group in communications along with singing with the National Philharmonic.

He was feeling a pull toward working in direct services and left to pursue a master’s in clinical social work at Boston University. While there, he began teaching Spanish for clinicians.

“A lot of the work in Boston was pointing to LGBT kids who were having issues with depression, substance abuse and gender identity,” says Membreño. “Watching them thrive in a beautifully affirming space where they felt loved and embraced sparked something in me and would lead to my work in the LGBT community.”

Membreño moved back to D.C. in 2016 because his dad wasn’t doing well. His girlfriend came with him and he joined District Sports to play soccer. His best friend was playing in the DCGFFL and encouraged him to join. He was drafted in the fall of 2016 and played as a rusher.

“I loved it and some of my teammates became my best friends,” Membreño says. “You get what you bring into the sport – I loved the people, the spirit of it and becoming part of it.”

During that first season, Membreño’s relationship with his girlfriend had crumbled. He and Livingstone had gotten to know each other through the league’s social settings. The team announcement party for the spring 2017 season provided an unexpected surprise for both of them. They were selected for the same team and gave each other a high five.

“Uh-oh,” thought Livingstone.

“Oh shit,” thought Membreño.

“I can roll into most situations without being nervous and I felt nervous because I had to compete to a level to match her,” says Membreño. “She is a fierce athlete and I felt like I shouldn’t be rushing next to her.”

Membreño is now the Director of Youth Housing and Clinical Services at SMYAL. He was recently sworn in as the commissioner of the Mayor’s Interagency Council on Homelessness.

Livingstone is an advocacy officer at The White Ribbon Alliance where she leads a five-country team that advocates for women’s sexual health and rights in Africa.

Love blossomed during that DCGFFL season and the pair are now living together. 

“I have a preference for strong brilliant women,” Membreño says. “She is strong, independent and amazing. I was completely enamored.”

“I thought he was smoking hot,” says Livingstone laughing.

Membreño and Livingstone haven’t been on the same team since that first season together. They point to their 200 brothers and sisters in the DCGFFL as being protective of both of them.

“Other people probably thought about us together before we did. We’ll kiss on the sidelines and hear a chorus of ‘awwws’,” Livingstone says. “We also hear ‘don’t you break his heart’ or ‘don’t you break her heart.’ It’s been wonderful to see everyone’s reaction to this.”

“I came into this environment where she was already established and I would go to her tournaments to watch her play as the trophy husband,” says Membreño. “This dynamic is the unity of the two of us. We show up to events separately or together.”

Membreño has also joined one of the DCGFFL’s travel teams and plays mostly defense with Delta Force competing in LGBT tournaments. It has added to the dynamic that already existed between them through the league.

“It is such a fun thing that we get to do this together and it is great to be able to support each other,” says Livingstone. “We have our own goals and separate experiences, but we still get to be with our friends and travel together. Let’s call it the love trajectory.”

Having a straight ally like Membreño is something that the LGBT sports community has embraced, and he sums up what it is like to be a straight man in an LGBT-based setting.

“Being comfortable in any setting is being comfortable with yourself. I have abandoned binary and gender rules and have no qualms at all about meshing with the LGBT community – it is part of my culture and my work at SMYAL,” Membreño says. “Amanda and I have joked that I have kissed more men on the mouth than she has. It is easy to feel comfortable in a place that is warm and loving.”

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Sports

Brittney Griner, wife expecting first child

WNBA star released from Russian gulag in December 2022

Published

3 days ago

on

April 16, 2024

By

Cherelle and Brittney Griner are expecting their first child in July. The couple shared the news on Instagram. (Photo courtesy of Brittney Griner's Instagram page)

One year after returning to the WNBA after her release from a Russian gulag and declaring, “I’m never playing overseas again,” Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner and her wife announced they have something even bigger coming up this summer. 

Cherelle, 31, and Brittney, 33, are expecting their first child in July. The couple shared the news with their 715,000 followers on Instagram. 

“Can’t believe we’re less than three months away from meeting our favorite human being,” the caption read, with the hashtag, #BabyGrinerComingSoon and #July2024.

Griner returned to the U.S. in December 2022 in a prisoner swap, more than nine months after being arrested in Moscow for possession of vape cartridges containing prescription cannabis.

In April 2023, at her first news conference following her release, the two-time Olympic gold medalist made only one exception to her vow to never play overseas again: To return to the Summer Olympic Games, which will be played in Paris starting in July, the same month “Baby Griner” is due. “The only time I would want to would be to represent the USA,” she said last year. 

Given that the unrestricted free agent is on the roster of both Team USA and her WNBA team, it’s not immediately clear where Griner will be when their first child arrives. 

The Griners purchased their “forever home” in Phoenix just last year.

“Phoenix is home,” Griner said at the Mercury’s end-of-season media day, according to ESPN. “Me and my wife literally just got a place. This is it.”

As the Los Angeles Blade reported last December, Griner is working with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts — like Griner, a married lesbian — on an ESPN television documentary as well as a television series for ABC about her life story. Cherelle is executive producer of these projects. 

Next month, Griner’s tell-all memoir of her Russian incarceration will be published by Penguin Random House. It’s titled “Coming Home” and the hardcover hits bookstores on May 7.

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Sports

Applause and criticism for Staley’s trans-inclusive stance

South Carolina Gamecocks women’s coach made comments on Sunday

Published

1 week ago

on

April 9, 2024

By

South Carolina Gamecocks women's basketball head coach Dawn Staley. (NBC News Today YouTube screenshot)

If not for a conservative transphobic blogger, this moment should be a celebration of NCAA women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley and the women of the South Carolina Gamecocks.

On Sunday, they concluded their undefeated season with a decisive win and a championship title. But when Staley faced reporters before that big game, Outkick’s Dan Zakheske asked her an irrelevant, clickbait question about transgender women in sports, referring to them as “biological males.” 

Staley could have ignored the question, or stated she had no opinion, but instead the legendary coach offered a crystal clear endorsement of trans women competing in women’s sports, something outlawed in her home state of South Carolina for girls in kindergarten through college. 

“I’m of the opinion,” said Staley, “If you’re a woman, you should play. If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports or vice versa, you should be able to play. That’s my opinion.”

Zakheske clearly wasn’t satisfied with that declaration of allyship and Staley swiftly cut him off. 

“You want me to go deeper?” she asked. 

“Do you think transgender women should be able to participate,” he started to say, when the coach stole the ball and took it downtown on a fastbreak. “That’s the question you want to ask? I’ll give you that. Yes. Yes. So, now the barnstormer people are going to flood my timeline and be a distraction to me on one of the biggest days of our game, and I’m okay with that. I really am.” 

Staley is herself a Hall of Fame player a leading voice for diversity. 

Reaction to her comments were swift, from LGBTQ rights organizations, athletes and inclusion opponents. 

“Coach Staley simply spoke the truth that trans women are women and should play if they want,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, in a post on Instagram. “All of us can take a page from Coach Staley’s playbook as a sports leader and as a person of high integrity guided by faith, compassion and common sense.” 

A White House pool reporter revealed President Joe Biden called Staley Sunday evening to congratulate her and the Gamecocks on their championship win. But it’s not clear if she and the president, an outspoken supporter of trans rights, discussed her remarks on trans athletes. 

A number of Black leaders in the LGBTQ movement applauded Staley for taking a stand. 

“Coach Staley has always been a trailblazer, but she’s also shown that true leadership is about advancing justice and equality for everyone,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson. “By expressing her full-throated support for transgender athletes’ inclusion in sports, she’s sending an important message — our shared humanity matters. 

“Coach Staley showed courage and vulnerability, in choosing to answer the question and make a powerful statement of support for trans people on one of the biggest days and biggest stages in sports history,” said Kierra Johnson, executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, in a statement. “Not only does that make her a leader we can all aspire to like, it makes her a class act. She has etched her legacy in the history books with her play, her coaching, her heart and her smarts.”

In congratulating Staley on her championship title victory, Dr. David J. Johns, the CEO and executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, also commended her for “her unwavering advocacy and support for transgender people in sports.” 

“In a time when transgender athetes face unjust scrutiny, discrimination and exclusion from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, her courage to speak truth to power and in support of inclusion and fairness sets a powerful example for us all, and is a testament to her integrity and compassion.”

The NBJC leader was referring to Monday’s announcement by the NAIA, the governing body of athletic programs at small colleges nationwide, voting 20-0 to essentially ban trans women from competing with other women beginning Aug. 1, as ESPN reported.

“It is a shocking and devastating development that the NAIA, an organization that has done so much to open doors, is now slamming those doors shut on transgender athletes,” said Sasha Buchert, Lambda Legal’s senior attorney and director of the organization’s nonbinary and trans rights project. 

“Instead of standing up in support of transgender young people, the NAIA has simply turned its back on them — permanently depriving them of the benefits of competition. Would that they had the courage of victorious University of South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley, who didn’t miss a beat in clarifying that transgender women should be able to play.” 

However, praise for Staley’s stance was not universal. 

Riley Gaines, failed former college swimmer and paid shill for the anti-inclusion organization, Independent Women’s Forum, called Staley “entirely incompetent or a sell-out” on Fox News. “Personally, I don’t think she believes what she said.” 

Gaines has turned her fifth-place tie with out trans NCAA champion Lia Thomas into a career as a crusader against inclusion and a former advisor to the presidential campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Val Whiting, a former Stanford University and professional women’s basketball player, tweeted her strong disagreement with Staley. “A lot of my basketball sisters feel differently but trans women do not belong in women’s sports. It’s not fair nor safe for biological women. There has to be another solution for trans women to be able to compete athletically besides having them compete against biological women.” 

Zaksheske’s Outkick colleague, anti-trans pundit David Hookstead, also went all-in with a transphobic post. 

“Dawn Staley says she supports men who identify as women competing against real women in sports. Her view could literally destroy women’s basketball forever. Why won’t more people stand up for women?”

Hookstead then boasted that Staley blocked his account. 

Republican South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace retweeted Zaksheske’s account of his interaction with Staley, calling her support of trans athletes “absolute lunacy.” That in turn won praise from Caitlyn Jenner, who retweeted Whiting and posted her thanks to Mace, along with this comment: “There is nothing complicated about this issue!” 

What is complicated is that Jenner has never explained why she has competed with cisgender women in golf ever since her transition almost a decade ago. 

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Sports

Caitlyn Jenner backs NY county transgender athletes ban

‘Let’s stop it now while we can’

Published

4 weeks ago

on

March 21, 2024

By

Caitlyn Jenner endorses Nassau County's transgender athlete ban during a press conference. (YouTube screenshot)

Caitlyn Jenner flew from Malibu to New York this week to join her fellow Republicans in their nationwide quest to keep transgender girls and women from competing in sports with other women. 

“Let’s stop it now while we can,” said the Olympic gold medalist, at a news conference carried live by Fox News Channel. 

Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman organized the event so that Jenner could speak in support of his February executive order banning trans athletes at more than 100 county-owned facilities. 

“Trans women are competing against women, taking valuable opportunities for the long-protected class under Title IX and causing physical harm,” said Jenner without providing supportive evidence of her claim. Jenner said the ban would defeat “the woke agenda.” 

Her comments drew praise from former NCAA swimmer and paid shill Riley Gaines, who represents the Independent Women’s Forum and has also worked with the failed presidential campaign of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on his anti-trans athlete platform.

“If the left wants to fight this battle on this hill, it’s a losing battle,” said Jenner. “We will win the battle.” She claimed she spoke on behalf of women and girls, contradicting her past statements in support of trans girls competing according to their gender identity and despite the fact she herself still competes in women’s sports.

Shortly after the ban was announced last month, New York State Attorney General Letitia James and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, both Democrats, denounced it and accused Blakeman of “bullying trans kids.” 

James called the order “transphobic and deeply dangerous,” and argued that it violates the state’s anti-discrimination laws. The state attorney general challenged it in court March 1 with a “cease and desist letter,” demanding that Blakeman rescind the order, saying it subjects women’s and girls’ sports teams to “invasive questioning.”

As the Los Angeles Blade reported, Blakeman’s legal team countered with its own lawsuit on March 5, claiming her cease and desist letter violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

“Not only was the executive order legal, but we had an obligation to defend it,” Blakeman said Monday. 

The order has also been challenged by the New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed suit last week on behalf of a women’s roller derby league based in Nassau County that welcomes trans women and would be barred from using the county’s facilities by Blakeman’s executive order.

Just days before the Long Island news conference, Jenner joined Olympian Sharron Davies, who also campaigns against trans inclusion in sports, for an conversation with a British newspaper, the Telegraph, which has been outspoken against trans inclusion. 

They recalled that in their day, tests to determine sex were mandatory in order to compete, and Jenner said she has been “pushing” for sex tests to return to sports, decades after sports organizations around the world abandoned the practice because they were unreliable. “If they continue down this road, it will be pretty much the end of women’s sport as we know it.”

“I can still hit a golf ball 280 yards,” Jenner continued, not mentioning she plays from the ladies’ tee. She did however opine about not being “a real woman,” acknowledging that many trans women disagree with her view. 

“They keep saying, ‘Oh, I’m a real woman, I’m a real woman,’ and I’m going, ‘No, you’re not,’” said Jenner. “I will use your preferred pronouns, I will treat you as a female, you can run and dress and do whatever you want, I have nothing against that, it’s fine, but biologically you’re still male.”

She added: “​Let me explain — I am biologically male, OK? I’m XY. There’s nothing I can do to change that. If you believe in gender dysphoria, and I think most people do realize it’s not a disease, it’s a mental condition, just like some people are left-handed and some people are right-handed, it’s kind of the way you’re born and I’ve dealt with it my entire life.“

“I consider myself a trans person, I am still genetically male, I changed all of my ID right down to my birth certificate so technically yes, I am female, but on the other hand I know I’m not.”

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