Sports
The NFL embraces LGBTQ+ inclusion ahead of Super Bowl LVI
“LGBTQ athletes need to see more stories of athletes like them supported by their teammates because many are accepted just as they are”
LOS ANGELES – LGBTQ+ History was made Thursday night atop the National Football League’s Los Angeles headquarters rooftop, overlooking the glittering new SoFi Stadium, site of Super Bowl LVI, as about 150 NFL players, sports professionals and fans mingled with supporters of GLAAD to celebrate the league’s now very public embrace of the LGBTQ+ community.
GLAAD and the National Football League (NFL) hosted ‘A Night of Pride,’ sponsored by Pepsi Stronger Together, at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood California.
Jonathan Beane, Senior Vice President, Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer at National Football League (NFL) welcomed the crowd and minced no words.
“This is long overdue, isn’t it?” he exclaimed, referring to the league’s commitment to the LGBTQ community. “This (event) is just the beginning; there’s a lot more that we’re going to do as a league.”
LGBTQ community icon and LA Dodger Baseball team owner Billy Jean King, the first female athlete to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for instance, has been selected as a Legendary Coin Toss Captain on Sunday.
(Photo courtesy of Major League Baseball Inc/The Los Angeles Dodgers)
“LGBTQ athletes need to see more stories of athletes like them, who are supported by their teammates, because so many of them are accepted, just as they are,” GLAAD Deputy President and COO Darra Gordon said in her remarks. “I hope young LGBTQ athletes see posts from tonight and know that they have a rightful place to be out in the NFL, in football, in sports, and at any cultural milestone they aim for.”
LZ Granderson, host of the ABC News podcast ‘Life Out Loud with LZ Granderson, moderated a discussion of LGBTQ inclusion in the NFL featuring out NFL Legend Ryan O’Callaghan and NFL free agent R.K. Russell, who came out as bi in 2019.
R.K., aka Ryan Russell, who is one of more than 20 players in NFL history to come out as gay or bisexual (with Michael Sam and Carl Nassib, he is one of three to do so before retiring) and O’Callaghan (who played six seasons with the NFL retiring in 2012) tackled the hard stuff.
O’Callaghan says, in his day, he never imagined a moment like this would be possible, “not a chance in hell” that there could ever be such a full on embrace of LGBTQ identity and players by the NFL.
“Back then” he said, “they didn’t do anything much at all. Especially not publicly. Up until the last few years, the NFL was absent (on LGBT issues).”
O’Callaghan, who came to the GLAAD event from the prestigious annual NFL Honors awards that bestows MVP Award, Players of the Year, etc, reported significant news of a very public LGBTQ moment.
(Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images for GLAAD)
During the Honors event, the LGBTQ community was also honored with a video montage of thanks from out gay and bisexual players, honoring Carl Nassib.
“A few months ago we filmed a piece for the NFL Network for their 360 show talking about LGBTQ in sports and the work of the Trevor Project. They had another player, Michael Irving — his brother is gay — and four us (from the NFL 360 segment) appear (tonight) onstage.”
They received a standing ovation.
“It was very powerful,” he said, “a big step for the NFL to broadcast that to America.”
“What they did tonight was a whole other step,” O’Callaghan said of the world wide television broadcast.
Moderator Gunderson seized the moment with an obvious question: “Are we done or is this like the Obama moment where we got the Black man in the White House but racism is still hanging around.”
Russell jumped at the chance to answer, saying “Things are certainly accelerating. As a generation of sports fans, as writers, as journalists, as athletes, we want to see ourselves in the game because we’ve always been there, because we built this game — honestly.”
“With the Black Lives Matters movement, seeing players really take a stand we know we are more than just these athletes. We are more than these titles. When we step off the field, we take those helmets off, I am a Black man and I am a bi-sexual man. That carries with me everywhere I go. I don’t have to wear a jersey for that.”
“But when I do wear that jersey you need to know that and respect that. You can either ride with me or not,” he said, adding “I think we’re just getting started.”
“But,” moderator Granderson ominously asked, “Where are we going?”
“We’ve got a race issue still in the NFL,” he continued. “If a league that is 70 percent openly Black can’t confront racism issues then how do you think a league that has one openly gay player has addressed its homophobia issues?”
“I think that’s where the community, the writers, people like us keep the league accountable as well,” said Russell. “It’s about holding them accountable and we need to see that from everybody — players, coaches, staff, journalists, fans. Keep the NFL to its word.”
Russell said that Covid downtime had helped people realize that “surface level, performative” actions are not enough.
“That’s not going to cut it anymore,” he said. “We want to see Black head coaches, we want to see out players, we want to see it in the media, on the field, we want to see you actually do the things you say you’re going to do.”
Asked if he felt the LGBT highlight moment during the evening’s Honors award was performative or a significant step forward, O’Callaghan said he felt “it was genuinely sincere” and that while it was perhaps the most significant thing the league had done to date, it was not the only thing.
O’Callaghan talked about the league’s sponsorship of New York’s Heritage of Pride and float entries into its parade. “They started with small things like that and doing things on social media and the NFL network, changing the logo during Pride month and sharing that on social media.”
“Now it’s kind of expected.,” O’Callaghan said. “The hardest thing was the first step.”
“Doing what they did tonight at Honors, and this party…I’m sure they will be participating in the parades again this year,” he said.
O’Callaghan pointed out that in 2021 the NFL and the Arizona Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill sponsored the National Gay Flag Football Super Bowl in Tempe. “It means the world to have the NFL and a team owner supporting LGBT players and fans,” he said.
Of course the evening was wrapped around the Super Bowl, an event that may champion triumph over adversity but also, famously, a commercial opportunity that has in recent years also found marketers paying millions of dollars for seconds long TV commercials that often celebrate cultural issues.
GLAAD’s Visibility Project, a program dedicated to growing LGBTQ inclusion in advertising, announced today that LGBTQ people and issues will be nearly invisible during Super Bowl LVI ads, with only one ad that expressly features LGBTQ people or issues released prior to the Sunday broadcast. The ad for the Google Pixel 6 features a queer couple.
Additionally, Vrbo will air a LGBTQ-inclusive pre-game ad. In 2020, at least-eleven LGBTQ-inclusive ads from Amazon Alexa, Budweiser, Doritos, HGTV, Microsoft, Olay, Pop Tarts, Sabra, Tide, TurboTax, and Under Armour aired during Super Bowl LIV. In 2021, at least four LGBTQ-inclusive ads from M&M’s, Michelob ULTRA, Logitech, and Paramount + aired during Super Bowl LV. GLAAD will track ads during Super Bowl LVI at GLAAD.org and release a comprehensive list following the game.
GLAAD Board Chair Pamela Stewart moderated a panel on LGBTQ inclusion in advertising featuring Mohit Jolly, Senior Director of Marketing for the Global Ads Marketing Organization at Google, trans actress model and producer Jari Jones, and Brent Miller, Senior Director for Global LGBTQ Equality at P&G.
P&G’s Miller told the story of an 18 year old youth from North Carolina who sent him a letter praising a 2018 Olympics ad in which out gay Olympic gold medalist Gus Kenworthy’s coming out story was featured, thanking P&G for saving a life.
“Thank you for saving another soul,” he wrote. He said “Something as short as an ad can be life changing,” telling the story of a 54 year old man who described a sense of empowerment watching a Pride flag unfold on an Olympic venue mountainside in South Korea. That kind of marketing, Miller said, is “what we’re supposed to do.”
Miller also said he was particularly proud that his work moves not just a younger generation but the generations before them who fought “so hard and now get to see their work come to fruition.”
Andrew Beaver, an advertising and marketing executive who serviced P&G advertising accounts, agreed with Miller, “I worked with P&G during a time when it wasn’t easy to support our community. They put put their money where their mouth approving LGBT+ inclusive advertising.”
Mojit Jolly, Senior Director for Global Ads Marketing at Google, who grew up in Chandigarh, India, a small, conservative city about five hours north of New Delhi, said he knew early on that something about him was different. “I come from the most intensely conservative background and coming out was not easy.”
He and actress Jari Jones spoke of the necessity for inclusion in marketing and the power of LGBT stories.
Jones said that images of trans people she was exposed to as a young person had set her back but today’s more authentic representations of people like her have changed her life and the lives of millions of people.
Google, said Jolly, recognizes the power of representation and information to transform our lives and highlighted several tools the mega-powered company provides, including LGBTQ safe spaces and LGBTQ business features on maps worldwide.
“Every day we reach billions and billions of people and so we have a responsibility,” he said. “I believe our commitments are profound.”
As the event drew to a close, Big Fredia took the stage and opened with her signature song of affirmation and call to be your true color, the aptly named “Big Dick Energy.”
Guests included out NFL Legend Ryan O’Callaghan as well as LGBTQ leaders and allies including Alyssa Milano, Anthony Bowens, August Getty, Big Freedia, Braunwyn Windham-Burke, Jai Rodriguez, Jari Jones, Jeka Jane, Joey Zauzig, Justin Sylvester, Kent Boyd, LZ Granderson, Mollee Grey, Peter Porte, Philemon Chambers, R.K. Russell, Sonya DeVille, Victoria Brito, Cyd Zeigler, Los Angeles Blade Publisher Troy Masters, Andrew Beaver, GLAAD’s Rich Ferraro and Pamela Stewart, Chair of GLAAD’s Board of Directors.
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FIFA has announced Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 World Cup, despite concerns over its human rights record that includes the death penalty for homosexuality.
The Associated Press reported FIFA confirmed the decision on Dec. 18. The AP noted Saudi Arabia is the only country that bid to host the 2034 World Cup.
“This is a historic moment for Saudi Arabia and a dream come true for all our 32 million people who simply love the game,” said Sport Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al- Faisal, who is also president of the Saudi Olympic and Paralympic Committee, in a statement the Saudi Press Agency posted to its website.
Saudi Arabia is among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death.
A U.S. intelligence report concluded Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “likely approved” the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018. A federal judge in 2022 dismissed a lawsuit against Prince Mohammed after the Biden-Harris administration said he was immune to the lawsuit because he is the country’s prime minister.
Human rights activists have also criticized the Saudi government over the treatment of women, migrant workers, and other groups in the country.
“No one should be surprised by this,” Cyd Zeigler, Jr., co-founder of Outsports.com, an LGBTQ sports website, told the Washington Blade in an email after FIFA confirmed Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 World Cup. “FIFA, the International Olympic Committee, and many other world governing bodies routinely turn to authoritarian countries with terrible human-rights records to host major sporting events. There are simply few other countries willing to spend the billions of dollars it takes to build the needed infrastructure.”
Peter Tatchell, a long-time LGBTQ activist from the U.K. who is director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation, in a statement described FIFA’s decision as “a betrayal of the values that football should stand for: Inclusivity, fairness, and respect for human rights.”
“This is not about football; it’s about sportswashing,” said Tatchell. “The Saudi regime is using the World Cup to launder its international image and distract from its brutal abuses. By granting them this platform, FIFA is complicit in whitewashing their crimes.”
Qatar, which borders Saudi Arabia, hosted the 2022 World Cup.
Consensual same-sex sexual relations remain criminalized in Qatar.
“Saudi Arabia was the only country to bid for the 2034 FIFA World Cup,” said Zeigler. “So, until FIFA, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and other governing bodies ban major human-rights violators from hosting, we’ll continue to see events like this in Saudi Arabia, China, Qatar, and other countries with terrible LGBTQ rights issues.”
The Blade has reached out to FIFA and the Saudi government for comment.
Sports
Controversy grows over member of Calif. university’s women’s volleyball team
Coach suspended, NCAA sued, more rivals forfeit
San Jose State University’s women volleyball team has collected yet another W by forfeit — its seventh so far this season — as controversy swirls around one player on its roster. She’s one of the seniors, and she has been dragged in the media by her own co-captain, who outed her as transgender.
The Washington Blade is not naming this student athlete since neither she nor the school have confirmed or even commented on her gender identity.
SJSU visited San Diego last weekend for a match before the Aztecs’ biggest home crowd of the season — including protesters waving “Save Women’s Sports” banners and booing one player on the Spartans team in particular: The woman who is reported to be trans.
Security was tight, with metal detectors and extra guards and police officers present. Video posted to YouTube by a right-wing sports media site — which names the player — shows an angry fan arguing with security about his First Amendment rights.
Video recorded during Nov. 9’s game shows a player for San Diego was injured following a spike by the player rumored to be trans, and had to be helped off the court. However, the video clearly shows that player was injured by landing poorly on one foot, not as a result of the spike.
The Aztecs defeated the Spartans 3-1, but San Jose has still punched its ticket to the conference finals, thanks to its record number of forfeits.
Wyoming was set to visit SJSU Thursday, but for the second time is joining other universities that have forfeited games against the Spartans, all without providing a reason. Boise State announced it will forfeit an upcoming match set for Nov. 21, its second forfeit against SJSU.
In September, the Spartans’ co-captain, senior Brooke Slusser, outed her own teammate, the player at the center of this controversy, in joining a federal lawsuit against the NCAA spearheaded by anti-trans inclusion activist and former college athlete Riley Gaines.
Slusser said in the lawsuit and in subsequent interviews that the player in question shouldn’t be on her team. The suit claims the NCAA’s policy on trans athletes violates Title IX by allowing “men” to compete in women’s sports and use women’s locker rooms where they display “full male genitalia.”
The NCAA policy for trans athletes participating in women’s volleyball aligns with that of USA Volleyball, which requires trans female athletes to suppress their testosterone below 10 nmol/L for a period of one year before competition. That is also how the NCAA determines eligibility. SJSU has stated repeatedly that all its players are eligible.
The lawsuit also asks the NCAA to revoke any titles or records won by trans female athletes in women’s competitions, which seems to be specifically aimed at stripping out trans NCAA champions Lia Thomas and CeCé Telfer of their titles in swimming and track and field, respectively.
Prior to this season, the player rumored to be trans did not attract any attention other than being a successful starter, like Slusser. But now that she is in the media spotlight, Slusser has come forward to tell right wing media, including Megyn Kelly, why she feels another woman two inches taller than she is poses a danger.
“I don’t feel safe,” Slusser said on “The Megyn Kelly Show” last month. “I’ve gone to my coaches and said I refuse to play against [her] … It’s not safe.”
In the video, both Kelly and Slusser refer to the player as “him” and a “man,” and name her.
Now comes another twist: San Jose State University suspended associate head coach Melissa Batie-Smoose with pay, indefinitely, after she filed a Title IX complaint against SJSU. She claims the player Slusser identified as trans conspired with an opponent to help the team lose a match and injure Slusser. Batie-Smoose named the player in question in her complaint and on Sept. 23, joined the same lawsuit that Slusser is now a part of.
“Safety is being taken away from women,” Batie-Smoose told Fox News. “Fair play is taken away from women. We need more and more people to do this and fight this fight because women’s sports, as we know it right now will be forever changed.”
Media reporting on the suspension, including Fox News, continue to name the athlete in question, with some also reporting what they say is the athlete’s birth name.
San Jose State released a statement following the suspension of Batie-Smoose: “The associate head coach of the San Jose State University women’s volleyball team is not with the team at this time, and we will not provide further information on this matter,” the team said.
SJSU Coach Todd Kress told ESPN that reports saying that any member of the Spartans colluded with their opponent are “littered with lies.”
The Spartans are currently among the top six finishers in the Mountain West Conference that will qualify to compete in the conference tournament scheduled for Nov. 27-30.
Sports
University of Nevada forfeits game rather than play possible trans athlete
Women’s volleyball team cites ‘not enough players to compete’
For the fifth time, a women’s volleyball team has chosen to forfeit instead of play against San Jose State University, because of rumors that one of its players is a transgender woman.
The University of Nevada, Reno, officially announced on Friday that it would forfeit Saturday’s game against the SJSU Spartans. This followed an announcement by Wolf Pack players who said they “refuse to participate in any match that advances injustice against female athletes,” without providing further details.
Originally, Nevada’s athletic department had said the program would not back out from the match, citing state equality laws, but also said that no players would be disciplined if they chose to not participate.
“The vast majority of our team decided this is something we wanted to take a stand on,” Nevada team captain Sia Liilii told Fox News. “We didn’t want to play against a male player.”
“In all of our team meetings it just kept coming back to the fact that men do not belong in women’s sports. If you’re born a biological male, you don’t belong in women’s sports. It’s not even about this individual athlete. It’s about fair competition and safety for everyone.”
Outsports and several conservative and right-wing websites have identified the player who is rumored to be trans, but the Washington Blade has opted to not do so since she herself has not come forward to either acknowledge or deny she is trans.
As ESPN reported, Nevada follows Southern Utah, Boise State, Wyoming, and Utah State in canceling games against the Spartans. Boise State, Wyoming, Utah State, and Nevada are all members of the Mountain West Conference, so those contests are considered forfeits and count as valuable wins in the league standings for San Jose State.
Riley Gaines, the anti-trans inclusion activist for the Independent Women’s Forum has joined the chorus in claiming the Spartans’ roster includes a trans woman.
If you're wondering why teams are forfeiting against @SJSU, here's the reason.
Last night another woman was smashed in the face by a kill from a man posing as a woman.
It's unfair, unsafe, and regressive, yet our "leaders" remain silent. pic.twitter.com/OS15AFxQsp
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) October 18, 2024
Despite this, neither San Jose State nor any of the other forfeiting teams have said the university’s women’s volleyball team has a trans player. SJSU issued a statement defending its roster.
“Our athletes all comply with NCAA and Mountain West Conference policies and they are eligible to play under the rules of those organizations. We will continue to take measures to prioritize the health and safety of our students while they pursue their earned opportunities to compete,” the statement read.
The governors of Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming — all of whom are members of the Republican Party — have issued public statements supporting the cancellations, claiming it’s in the interest of fairness in women’s sports. This week, Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee and former president, spoke at a Fox News televised town hall when asked about trans athletes in women’s sports.
“We’re not going to let it happen,” Trump said. “We stop it, we stop it, we absolutely stop it. We can’t have it. You just ban it. The president bans it. You don’t let it happen. It’s not a big deal.”
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