Sports
More than 7,000 active in D.C. LGBT sports leagues
Kickball, softball, football among 36 sports that draw players
The DC Gay Flag Football League is one of many outlets for LGBT athletes in the city. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
In what some consider a little-known development, more than 7,000 LGBT people in the D.C. metropolitan area are actively involved in hundreds of teams and dozens of leagues that play in at least 36 sports ranging from softball, tennis, and kickball to bowling, soccer, and scuba diving.
Steve Frable, president of Team D.C., a nonprofit association that represents and promotes at least 36 LGBT sports clubs, said it’s hard to keep track of the exact number of people involved in the LGBT sports groups because many play more than one sport.
“A lot of people who are into these sports play multiple sports,” he said. “I’m a softballer and a bowler. My partner is a tennis player and a volleyball player and a bowler,” Frable said.
“So we don’t maintain any type of individual database that says this person is a bowler or softballer,” he said. “We just rely on the teams themselves and the clubs to tell us how many people they have.”
Regardless of the exact number, Team D.C.’s official list of LGBT sports clubs and the specific sport they play includes a wide variety of sports that Les Johnson, the immediate past president of Team D.C., said clearly dispels the stereotype that LGBT people shun sports.
“We have a very active legitimate LGBT sports community here in D.C.,” Johnson said.
Frable said one of the largest of the clubs is Stonewall Kickball, which has about 1,000 players competing in numerous leagues and dozens of teams.
The names of some of the clubs, which usually include the sport in which they are involved, include: Lambda Links Golf; Stonewall Dodgeball; Capital Splats Racquetball; D.C. Strokes Rowing Club; Washington Renegades Rugby; D.C. Pride Volleyball League; Eastern Women’s Baseball Club; D.C. Sentinels Basketball; and D.C. Gay Flag Football League.
Some of the sports groups, including the Quantico Orienteering Club, involve lesser known sports.
“Orienteering is an outdoor sport in which participants use a topographic map and compass to navigate to a series of checkpoints,” a write-up on the club’s website says. The write-up says the sport can involve “challenging yourself, racing against the clock, trying to maintain mental focus while pushing hard physically through demanding terrain.”
It adds, “If you love exploring the great outdoors, while being challenged physically and mentally, try orienteering. You’ll be hooked for life!”
One of the newer clubs to join Team D.C. is Stonewall Climbing, a rock climbing league that its founder Brian Yamasaki said is initially carrying out its climbing competition at a unique gym in the Crystal City section of Arlington, Va., that has created indoor rock-like walls for climbing.
“Essentially the league monitors everyone’s personal progress and then you get ranked amongst your teammates and then the teams get ranked among each other,” Yamasaki said. “We welcome anybody from seasoned climbers to completely new beginners.”
A number of the clubs involve swimming and sailing, including Washington Wetskins Water Polo; D.C. Aquatics Club, which involves swimming competition; Rainbow Spinnakers Sailing; and D.C. Strokes Rowing Club. The latter group competes on the Anacostia River.
“DCSRC holds fast to the conviction that LGBT rowers can be formidable athletes and competitors,” the group says on its website. “Our goal is for the DCSRC to be a platform for competitive success and to increase the profile of LGBT rowers in the rowing community while promoting a spirit of camaraderie amongst our members.”
Lambda Divers, which organizes scuba diving trips, says on its website that it has grown significantly since it was founded in 1989.
“Since then it has grown to be one of the most successful LGBTQ scuba clubs in the world,” the group’s website says. “We provide a unique forum through which LGBTQ divers can meet, learn more about diving, make friends and dive buddies, and enjoy great camaraderie on dive trips and social events.”
Johnson said he stepped down as president of Team D.C. after he was named vice president of external affairs for the Federation of Gay Games, the group that organizes the international LGBT sports competition known as the Gay Games.
D.C. is one of three cities competing to host the 2022 Gay Games. The FGG is scheduled to announce its decision on the host city at its annual meeting in Paris in October.
Johnson, an avid bowler, also serves as president of Capital Area Rainbowlers Association, an LGBT bowling club affiliated with Team D.C. that has about 400 members involved in its fall, winter and summer leagues.
“We have some really good bowlers,” he said. “My league last year had three perfect games,” he added, referring to a bowling score of 300, the highest possible score. “We probably have a dozen or more bowlers that have a 200 or more average.”
Brent Minor, one of the founders of Team D.C. who currently serves as chair of the committee promoting D.C.’s bid to become the host city for the 2022 Gay Games, said he has taken a leave of absence from his role as executive director of Team D.C. during the Gay Games bidding process.
He noted that Team D.C. was established in 1990 and incorporated in 2003 as a 501(c)3 charitable organization.
“Team D.C. works within the broader community to dispel discrimination against LGBT people participating in sports; awards scholarships to LGBT student-athletes; provides a network of sporting outlets for the LGBT community in the Washington Metropolitan area; and promotes participation in local, regional, national, and international amateur sports competitions,” according to the group’s website.
Other LGBT sports leagues and clubs affiliated with Team D.C. include Stonewall Darts; Rogue Darts; Lambda Squares Square Dancing; Ultimate Out Frisbee League; D.C. Roller Girls; Washington Furies Women’s Rugby; D.C. Front Runners; D.C. Sentinels Basketball; Chesapeake & Potomac Softball; TriOuts Triathlon Club; Stonewall Billiards; Stonewall Bocce; and Stonewall Darts.
A complete list of all of the clubs and leagues can be accessed at teamdc.org.
Sports
Jason Collins dies at 47
First openly gay man to actively play for major sports team battled brain cancer
Jason Collins, the first openly gay man to actively play for a major professional sports team, died on Tuesday after a battle with brain cancer. He was 47.
The California native had briefly played for the Washington Wizards in 2013 before coming out in a Sports Illustrated op-ed.
Collins in 2014 became the first openly gay man to play in a game for a major American professional sports league when he played 11 minutes during a Brooklyn Nets game. He wore jersey number 98 in honor of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student murdered outside of Laramie, Wyo., in 1998.
Collins told the Washington Blade in 2014 that his life was “exponentially better” since he came out. Collins the same year retired from the National Basketball Association after 13 seasons.
Collins married his husband, Brunson Green, in May 2025.
The NBA last September announced Collins had begun treatment for a brain tumor. Collins on Dec. 11, 2025, announced he had Stage 4 glioblastoma.
“We are heartbroken to share that Jason Collins, our beloved husband, son, brother and uncle, has died after a valiant fight with glioblastoma,” said Collins’s family in a statement the NBA released. “Jason changed lives in unexpected ways and was an inspiration to all who knew him and to those who admired him from afar. We are grateful for the outpouring of love and prayers over the past eight months and for the exceptional medical care Jason received from his doctors and nurses. Our family will miss him dearly.”
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said Collins’s “impact and influence extended far beyond basketball as he helped make the NBA, WNBA, and larger sports community more inclusive and welcoming for future generations.”
“He exemplified outstanding leadership and professionalism throughout his 13-year NBA career and in his dedicated work as an NBA Cares Ambassador,” said Silver. “Jason will be remembered not only for breaking barriers, but also for the kindness and humanity that defined his life and touched so many others.”
“To call Jason Collins a groundbreaking figure for our community is simply inadequate. We truly lost a giant today,” added Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson in a statement. “He came out as gay — while still playing — at a time when men’s athletes simply did not do that. But as he powerfully demonstrated in his final years in the league and his post-NBA career, stepping forward as he did boldly changed the conversation.”
“He was and will always be a legend for the LGBTQ+ community, and we are heartbroken to hear of his passing at the young age of 47,” she said. “Our hearts go out to his family and loved ones. We will keep fighting on in his honor until the day everyone can be who they are on their terms.”
Sports
New IOC policy bans trans women from Olympics
New regulation to be in effect at 2028 summer games in Los Angeles
The International Olympic Committee on Thursday announced it will not allow transgender women from competing in female events at the Olympics.
“For all disciplines on the Sports Program of an IOC event, including individual and team sports, eligibility for any Female Category is limited to biological females,” reads the new policy.
The policy states “eligibility for the Female Category is to be determined in the first instance by SRY Gene screening to detect the absence or presence of the SRY Gene.”
“On the basis of the scientific evidence, the IOC considers that the SRY (sex-determining Region Y) Gene is fixed throughout life and represents highly accurate evidence that an athlete has experienced or will experience male sex development,” it reads. “Furthermore, the IOC considers that SRY Gene screening via saliva, cheek swab or blood sample is unintrusive compared to other possible methods. Athletes who screen negative for the SRY gene permanently satisfy this policy’s eligibility criteria for competition in the Female Category.”
The policy states the test “will be a once-in-a-lifetime test” unless “there is reason to believe a negative reading is in error.”
The new regulation will be in place for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
“I understand that this a very sensitive topic,” said IOC President Kirsty Coventry on Thursday in a video. “As a former athlete, I passionately believe in the rights of all Olympians to take part in fair competition.”
“The policy that we have announced is based on science and it has been led by medical experts with the best interests of athletes at its heart. The scientific evidence is very clear: male chromosomes give performance advances in sport that rely on strength, power, or endurance,” she added. “At the Olympic Games, even the smallest margins can be the difference between victory and defeat. So, it is absolutely clear that it would not be fair for biological males to compete in the female category. In addition, in some sports it would simply not be safe.”
(Video courtesy of the IOC)
Laurel Hubbard, a weightlifter from New Zealand, in 2021 became the first trans woman to compete at the Olympics.
Imane Khelif, an Algerian boxer, won a gold medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Khelif later sued JK Rowling and Elon Musk for cyberstalking after they questioned her gender identity.
Ellis Lundholm, a mogul skier from Sweden, this year became the first openly trans athlete to compete in any Winter Olympics when he participated in Milan Cortina Winter Olympics in Italy.
President Donald Trump in February 2025 issued an executive order that bans trans women and girls from female sports teams in the U.S.
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee last July banned trans women from competing in female sporting events. Republican lawmakers have demanded the IOC ban trans athletes from women’s athletic competitions.
“I’m grateful the Olympics finally embraced the common sense policy that women’s sports are for women, not for men,” said U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on X.
An IOC spokesperson on Thursday referred the Washington Blade to the press release that announced the new policy.
More than a dozen LGBTQ athletes won medals at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics that ended on Sunday.
Cayla Barnes, Hilary Knight, and Alex Carpenter are LGBTQ members of the U.S. women’s hockey team that won a gold medal after they defeated Canada in overtime. Knight the day before the Feb. 19 match proposed to her girlfriend, Brittany Bowe, an Olympic speed skater.
French ice dancer Guillaume Cizeron, who is gay, and his partner Laurence Fournier Beaudry won gold. American alpine skier Breezy Johnson, who is bisexual, won gold in the women’s downhill. Amber Glenn, who identifies as bisexual and pansexual, was part of the American figure skating team that won gold in the team event.
Swiss freestyle skier Mathilde Gremaud, who is in a relationship with Vali Höll, an Austrian mountain biker, won gold in women’s freeski slopestyle.
Bruce Mouat, who is the captain of the British curling team that won a silver medal, is gay. Six members of the Canadian women’s hockey team — Emily Clark, Erin Ambrose, Emerance Maschmeyer, Brianne Jenner, Laura Stacey, and Marie-Philip Poulin — that won silver are LGBTQ.
Swedish freestyle skier Sandra Naeslund, who is a lesbian, won a bronze medal in ski cross.
Belgian speed skater Tineke den Dulk, who is bisexual, was part of her country’s mixed 2000-meter relay that won bronze. Canadian ice dancer Paul Poirier, who is gay, and his partner, Piper Gilles, won bronze.
Laura Zimmermann, who is queer, is a member of the Swiss women’s hockey team that won bronze when they defeated Sweden.
Outsports.com notes all of the LGBTQ Olympians who competed at the games and who medaled.
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