Sports
U.S. Soccer bans anti-gay chants at sanctioned matches
The federation’s Board of Directors passed a resolution to adopt a ban on discriminatory chants at all sanctioned soccer matches
With just 20 days until the U.S. men’s national team take on Mexico in their World Cup qualifying match, U.S. Soccer is taking a stand against a popular chant that perpetuates homophobia and gay bashing.
The federation’s board of directors voted Friday on a resolution that will adopt a zero-tolerance policy regarding anti-gay chants at all matches hosted or sanctioned in the U.S., including international matches played here.
The board also agreed to work on a way to implement FIFA’s own three-step protocol at all matches “promoted or controlled by U.S. Soccer.”
The ban comes just 20 days before the USMNT takes the field before a packed house at the fabled Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, where fans have a long history of chanting the word “puto.” The slur has many meanings but when it’s shouted at opposing players, it’s roughly translated to mean “male prostitute” in colloquial Spanish.
This happens so frequently at Esadio Azteca, that FIFA has issued multiple fines against Mexico’s Football Federation. In response, the MFF issued a ban of its own in January. Violators caught chanting that or any other homophobic slur risk being banned from matches for five years, as the Los Angeles Blade reported.
But this problem is hardly limited to Mexico.
In June, the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, (CONCACAF) league’s final match in the Mile-High City was halted after fans disrupted the game play by shouting the vulgar chant at players on the field.
Then in November, the Los Angeles Football Club’s final home match of the 2021 season was marred by fans chanting at least three times. The LAFC announced recently it would work to stop the practice by teaming up with the LGBTQ fan group Pride Republic, as well as The 3252, which is the club’s largest official fan group, in hopes of curbing the use of the slur at Banc of California Stadium.
“While to many, it may seem like crowd chants at soccer matches may just be sophomoric attempts to distract the players on an opposing team, as a queer, Latino soccer fan, these discriminatory chants cut much deeper,” said Christopher Vasquez, NCLR Director of Communications, in a statement posted online.
“For LGBTQ Latinos, these chants – almost always using a highly-derogatory Spanish slur – create an atmosphere of hostility, recalling long-lasting memories of fear and rejection,” Vasquez added. “We applaud U.S. Soccer for passing a ban on these homophobic chants to ensure that all of their matches are inclusive of their entire fan base. U.S. Soccer today made an unequivocal statement that there is no room for hate and homophobia in football and now it must take action to make this resolution an enforceable policy at its next meeting.”
U.S. Soccer didn’t come to this decision all on its own. Reports by the Blade, Outsports and ESPN kept pressure on the board of directors. NCLR worked with attorney Paul C. Burke of Equality Utah to put even more public pressure on U.S. Soccer, with a social media toolkit that urged the organization to pass the ban on the discriminatory chants with the hashtag campaign #BanTheChant.
Sports
Attitude! French ice dancers nail ‘Vogue’ routine
Cizeron and Fournier Beaudry strike a pose in memorable Olympics performance
Madonna’s presence is being felt at the Olympic Games in Italy.
Guillaume Cizeron and his rhythm ice dancing partner Laurence Fournier Beaudry of France performed a flawless skate to Madonna’s “Vogue” and “Rescue Me” on Monday.
The duo scored an impressive 90.18 for their effort, the best score of the night.
“We’ve been working hard the whole season to get over 90, so it was nice to see the score on the screen,” Fournier Beaudry told Olympics.com. “But first of all, just coming out off the ice, we were very happy about what we delivered and the pleasure we had out there. With the energy of the crowd, it was really amazing.”
Watch the routine on YouTube here.
Italy
Olympics Pride House ‘really important for the community’
Italy lags behind other European countries in terms of LGBTQ rights
The four Italian advocacy groups behind the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics’ Pride House hope to use the games to highlight the lack of LGBTQ rights in their country.
Arcigay, CIG Arcigay Milano, Milano Pride, and Pride Sport Milano organized the Pride House that is located in Milan’s MEET Digital Culture Center. The Washington Blade on Feb. 5 interviewed Pride House Project Manager Joseph Naklé.
Naklé in 2020 founded Peacox Basket Milano, Italy’s only LGBTQ basketball team. He also carried the Olympic torch through Milan shortly before he spoke with the Blade. (“Heated Rivalry” stars Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie last month participated in the torch relay in Feltre, a town in Italy’s Veneto region.)
Naklé said the promotion of LGBTQ rights in Italy is “actually our main objective.”
ILGA-Europe in its Rainbow Map 2025 notes same-sex couples lack full marriage rights in Italy, and the country’s hate crimes law does not include sexual orientation or gender identity. Italy does ban discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, but the country’s nondiscrimination laws do not include gender identity.
ILGA-Europe has made the following recommendations “in order to improve the legal and policy situation of LGBTI people in Italy.”
• Marriage equality for same-sex couples
• Depathologization of trans identities
• Automatic co-parent recognition available for all couples
“We are not really known to be the most openly LGBT-friendly country,” Naklé told the Blade. “That’s why it (Pride House) was really important for the community.”
“We want to use the Olympic games — because there is a big media attention — and we want to use this media attention to raise the voice,” he added.
Naklé noted Pride House will host “talks and roundtables every night” during the games that will focus on a variety of topics that include transgender and nonbinary people in sports and AI. Another will focus on what Naklé described to the Blade as “the importance of political movements now to fight for our rights, especially in places such as Italy or the U.S. where we are going backwards, and not forwards.”
Seven LGBTQ Olympians — Italian swimmer Alex Di Giorgio, Canadian ice dancers Paul Poirier and Kaitlyn Weaver, Canadian figure skater Eric Radford, Spanish figure skater Javier Raya, Scottish ice dancer Lewis Gibson, and Irish field hockey and cricket player Nikki Symmons — are scheduled to participate in Pride House’s Out and Proud event on Feb. 14.
Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood representatives are expected to speak at Pride House on Feb. 21.
The event will include a screening of Mariano Furlani’s documentary about Pride House and LGBTQ inclusion in sports. The MiX International LGBTQ+ Film and Queer Culture Festival will screen later this year in Milan. Pride House Los Angeles – West Hollywood is also planning to show the film during the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Naklé also noted Pride House has launched an initiative that allows LGBTQ sports teams to partner with teams whose members are either migrants from African and Islamic countries or people with disabilities.
“The objective is to show that sports is the bridge between these communities,” he said.
Bisexual US skier wins gold
Naklé spoke with the Blade a day before the games opened. The Milan Cortina Winter Olympics will close on Feb. 22.
More than 40 openly LGBTQ athletes are competing in the games.
Breezy Johnson, an American alpine skier who identifies as bisexual, on Sunday won a gold medal in the women’s downhill. Amber Glenn, who identifies as bisexual and pansexual, on the same day helped the U.S. win a gold medal in team figure skating.
Glenn said she received threats on social media after she told reporters during a pre-Olympics press conference that LGBTQ Americans are having a “hard time” with the Trump-Vance administration in the White House. The Associated Press notes Glenn wore a Pride pin on her jacket during Sunday’s medal ceremony.
“I was disappointed because I’ve never had so many people wish me harm before, just for being me and speaking about being decent — human rights and decency,” said Glenn, according to the AP. “So that was really disappointing, and I do think it kind of lowered that excitement for this.”
Puerto Rico
Bad Bunny shares Super Bowl stage with Ricky Martin, Lady Gaga
Puerto Rican activist celebrates half time show
Bad Bunny on Sunday shared the stage with Ricky Martin and Lady Gaga at the Super Bowl halftime show in Santa Clara, Calif.
Martin came out as gay in 2010. Gaga, who headlined the 2017 Super Bowl halftime show, is bisexual. Bad Bunny has championed LGBTQ rights in his native Puerto Rico and elsewhere.
“Not only was a sophisticated political statement, but it was a celebration of who we are as Puerto Ricans,” Pedro Julio Serrano, president of the LGBTQ+ Federation of Puerto Rico, told the Washington Blade on Monday. “That includes us as LGBTQ+ people by including a ground-breaking superstar and legend, Ricky Martin singing an anti-colonial anthem and showcasing Young Miko, an up-and-coming star at La Casita. And, of course, having queer icon Lady Gaga sing salsa was the cherry on the top.”
La Casita is a house that Bad Bunny included in his residency in San Juan, the Puerto Rican capital, last year. He recreated it during the halftime show.
“His performance brought us together as Puerto Ricans, as Latin Americans, as Americans (from the Americas) and as human beings,” said Serrano. “He embraced his own words by showcasing, through his performance, that the ‘only thing more powerful than hate is love.’”
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