Sports
Caitlyn Jenner attacks transgender female athletes
“I don’t think biological boys should compete in women’s sports — we have to protect women’s sports. That’s the bottom line”
This week coming up in Atlanta, the NCAA Women’s Division I Swimming and Diving Championships, begin on March 16. One of the top-seated competitors is Lia Thomas from the University of Pennsylvania Women’s Team. The 22-year-old senior is no ordinary athlete as she is a Trans female at the center of a rancorous national debate over Trans athletes in competition sports.
Earlier this month Thomas was profiled in a cover story for Sports Illustrated magazine in an exclusive interview explaining why she has to compete when many—including some teammates—say she shouldn’t be able to compete against other women. “The very simple answer is that I am not a man,’ Thomas told SI. “I’m a woman — so I belong on the women’s team.”
Her answer rankled opponents of Trans girls and females participating in sports including reality-television star, a pre-transition Olympian, and conservative Trump Republican Caitlyn Jenner. In a March 4 2022 by Barbara McMahon, UK journalist based in Los Angeles for the British tabloid The Daily Mail, Jenner tells her; “I don’t think biological boys should compete in women’s sports — we have to protect women’s sports. That’s the bottom line.”
“I respect her right to transition and I hope she has a wonderful, wonderful life. But she grew up as a biological boy and I don’t think it’s fair that she’s competing in women’s sports,'” Jenner tells The Daily Mail. “Her cardiovascular system is bigger, her heart is bigger, she’s got longer arms and legs.”
“Three years earlier, she was on the men’s team ranked 462; now she’s No. 1 in the same event for women? Obviously, it’s not fair,” Jenner comments.
Thomas is adhering to the standards and regulations set out by the U.S. National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), which requires Trans female athletes to be on hormone therapy for at least 12 months before they can compete.
The NCAA adopted new policies in January covering the competition of transgender athletes, creating a “sport-by-sport” approach that also requires documentation of testosterone levels across the board amid a fervor of recently transitioned swimmers breaking records in women’s athletics.
Although the policy defers to the national governing bodies for individual sports, it also requires transgender athletes to document sport-specific testosterone levels beginning four weeks before their sport’s championship selections. The new policy, which consistent with rules for the U.S. Olympics, is effective 2022, although implementation is set to begin with the 2023-24 academic year, the organization says.
The NCAA guidelines now specify that Trans athletes would need to register continuously on HRT for 36 months before applying to swim as a woman. Thomas has been on HRT for a total of 34 months, however she is covered as the new policies have not yet been implemented.
Although critics charge that the NCAA policies doesn’t go far enough in protecting women’s sport and essentially make an exception for Thomas, Jenner agreed that the collegiate swimmer is following the rules. “But the rules have to change,” Jenner claims.
‘Here’s an example: I play golf and, seven years after my transition, I still have a big advantage over women players. I’m 6ft 1in. I have longer arms than the ladies and I can outdrive them by a hundred yards,’ she explains. ‘Even being off testosterone and on oestrogen for seven years now, what I’ve got left over is still more than they’ve ever had. So, it wouldn’t be fair.’
Jenner told the Daily Mail she was regularly invited to take part in ladies’ golf tournaments, but she always turned them down. “I’d feel bad taking a trophy away from one of the ladies at our club who really deserves it,” she said.
Jenner says she fully supports Thomas embracing her gender identity and living as a woman, but she says she does not understand her motives in sport.
“I don’t see how you can be happy beating other girls under these circumstances. You have to have a sense of personal responsibility. You can still enjoy sports but not play at a competitive level, right?”
In January Jenner also attacked Thomas:
We must protect women’s sports. We cannot bow down to the radical left wing woke world and the radical politically charged agenda of identity politics. pic.twitter.com/LBRx3w8hrQ
— Caitlyn Jenner (@Caitlyn_Jenner) January 28, 2022
Jenner continues to draw a firestorm of criticism for her viewpoints regarding Trans girls and women in sports.
Last Spring, while running as a conservative Republican candidate for the Office of Governor in the special recall election of incumbent Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, Jenner was asked by a reporter from celebrity news tabloid TMZ about her position on the multiple pieces of anti-Trans youth sports legislation across the United States, outside a coffee shop in her hometown of Malibu.
Jenner responded that she saw it as a question of fairness saying that she opposed biological boys who are Trans- competing in girls’ sports in school. “It just isn’t fair,” Jenner said adding, “and we have to protect girls’ sports in our school.”
This past February Jenner attacked those members of the Trans community battling for greater inclusion of Trans girls and females in sports as “a fringe minority” accusing them of endangering children with transgender policies.
‘RUINING IT FOR EVERYBODY’: @Caitlyn_Jenner blasts ‘fringe’ members of LGBTQ community, accusing them of endangering children with transgender policies. pic.twitter.com/EUrhkaftt2
— Fox News (@FoxNews) February 23, 2022
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.’”
Unconventional love: Or, fuck it, let’s choose each other again
Pride flag raised at Stonewall after National Park Service took it down
Trans students not included in new India University Grants Commission equity rules
Calendar: February 13-19
FOIA lawsuit filed against State Department for PEPFAR records
Pride flag removed from Stonewall Monument as Trump targets LGBTQ landmarks
I keep getting rejected on the apps
Gay man details secret struggle with bulimia
Olympics Pride House ‘really important for the community’
