Sports
Gay Games 11 begin in Hong Kong and Mexico
Registrations are reportedly far below expectations
Organizers call it the world’s largest inclusive sports, arts and culture event: The 11th Gay Games, delayed by a year and cohosted by the cities of Hong Kong and Guadalajara, Mexico. They got underway Friday, and for the first time in the 40-year history of the games, they are being held in a city in Latin America and another city in Asia.
More than 2,300 athletes from 45 countries, including the U.S, Britain, South Korea and China are expected to take part in the Hong Kong games, according to organizers. Soccer is the main event this weekend.
Dodgeball, soccer, swimming, powerlifting and track-and-field are among the events this weekend in Guadalajara, according to that event’s website.
But according to reports, the number of athletes and spectators at both venues is far below the standards set in previous Gay Games.
These games were originally planned for just one city, Hong Kong, this time last year. The intent was for Gay Games 11 to serve as what organizers called “a beacon of hope” for the LGBTQ community in a Chinese-ruled region that challenges restrictions on gay rights.
While it is legal to be gay in China and many of its major cities have thriving LGBTQ social scenes, same-sex marriage and adoption by gay people are illegal and there are no legal protections against LGBTQ discrimination.
To many Chinese government officials, being gay is “a malign foreign influence that is stopping youth from getting married and having children,” Darius Longarino, a senior fellow at the Paul Tsai China Center at Yale Law School, recently told NBC News.
That and the summer shutdown of the Beijing LGBT center by the government in May, affirmed the decision to divide Gay Games 11 across two continents, which was at first driven by Hong Kong’s strict COVID-19 protocols, as Reuters reported. Organizers postponed the games for 12 months due to the city’s strict COVID-19 protocols, and it was decided to divide the competitions with runner-up bidder Guadalajara in western Mexico.
Despite the locales being more than eight thousand miles apart, organizers have coordinated a series of sporting events under the slogan, “unity in diversity.”
“Everyone aged 18/+ is welcome to participate,” according to the Hong Kong venue’s website, “regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, ethnicity or even training level.”
Inclusion isn’t as much of a problem at this Gay Games as is the lack of participants and spectators.
Original estimates for the 2022 event in Hong Kong was for 12,000 participants, 75,000 spectators and 3,000 volunteers from 100 countries. The 36 events were to include Dragon Boat Racing, Dodgeball and eSports.
But for 2023, Reuters reports registrations fell far below expectations, due in part to ongoing worries about COVID-19 and LGBTQ rights in China and concerns over safety in Guadalajara, where crime and kidnappings are common.
One week ago, organizers in Guadalajara had registered only 2,458 participants, and Hong Kong had under 2,400, for a combined 4,839 athletes. It’s unheard of for a Gay Games to have fewer than 8,000 participants.
The games were first held in San Francisco in 1982. Organizers boast this is “one of the largest global events of their kind,” according to the Gay Games 11 website, bringing people together” to experience unforgettable moments of joy through a unique combination of sport, community and culture.”
But according to Reuters, what is bringing people together in Guadalajara are the criminals who prey upon visitors. The city is located in the state of Jalisco, where drug cartels operate freely.
Wayne Morgan, a senior Australian athlete who has competed in six prior Gay Games, told Reuters he was drugged and robbed last year when he visited Guadalajara for a planning conference related to this year’s games. He said he made his way to the police station and found himself in a long queue of other crime victims, where he was told: “This happens a lot.”
A spokesperson for the Federation of Gay Games told Reuters the decision to split the event had a “significant impact on registration numbers” but added that the organizers believed the choice of two locations “allows even more people from around the world to celebrate LGBTQ+ sports with us.”
But to Morgan, splitting the host cities was “a mistake” and that low numbers could deter corporate sponsorship in the future.
“In my heart of hearts, I wish the whole thing was canceled and we could skip to Valencia in 2026,” he said. The next games are planned for Valencia, Spain.
Taiwan’s competitors withdrew their registration from the Hong Kong event in August, citing fears their participants could be arrested if they display the island’s flag or use its name. Human rights activists called for the games in Hong Kong to be canceled, accusing organizers of aligning themselves with “pro-authoritarian figures responsible for widespread persecution against the people of Hong Kong.”
In response to the low registration numbers, Hong Kong organizers canceled several events, including field hockey and Rugby 7s as well as some in the category of track-and-field.
Gay Games 11 runs through Nov. 11.
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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