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.
CONTENT WARNING: The following story discusses suicide ideation.
Her first few weeks behind bars in a Russian prison took a terrible toll on Brittney Griner, the lesbian WNBA star who is breaking her silence on the 10 months she was held on drug-related charges.
“I wanted to take my life more than once in the first weeks,” Griner told ABC’s Robin Roberts in a primetime interview Wednesday. “I felt like leaving here so badly.”
The two-time Olympic gold medalist and nine-time WNBA All-Star, who plays for the Phoenix Mercury, said she ultimately decided against suicide, partly because she feared Russian authorities would not release her body to her wife, Cherelle Griner.
Griner, 33, was arrested on Feb. 17, 2022, at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Khimki, a suburb of Moscow. Authorities said they found vape cartridges in her luggage containing cannabis oil, which is illegal in the country.
Griner told Roberts that was the result of a “mental lapse” on her part — packing the cannabis oil cartridges in her luggage, Griner said that she had overslept on the morning she was leaving for Russia to play during the WNBA’s off-season, which is how many of the league’s vastly underpaid players earn a living, compared to NBA players.
So, she packed while she was “in panic mode,” Griner said.
“My packing at that moment was just throwing all my stuff in there and zipping it up and saying, ‘OK, I’m ready,’” she told Roberts.
After landing in Russia, Griner realized that she had those two cannabis oil cartridges in her luggage as Russian security officers inspected her bag at the airport. She recalled the moment as a sinking feeling.
“I’m just like, ‘Oh, my God.’ Like, ‘How did I — how did I make this mistake?’” Griner said. “I could just visualize everything I worked so hard for just crumbling and going away.”
Russian authorities immediately arrested Griner, but her trial would not take place for five months. She described the horrible conditions of her imprisonment during that delay, saying that she didn’t always have toilet paper and that the toothpaste they gave her had expired about 15 years ago.
“That toothpaste was expired,” she said. “We used to put it on the black mold to kill the mold on the walls.”
“The mattress had a huge blood stain on it, and they give you these thin two sheets,” she added. “So you’re basically laying on bars.”
On July 7, 2022, Griner pleaded guilty at her trial to drug charges, admitting that she had the vape cartridges containing cannabis oil but stating she put them in her luggage unintentionally. She testified that she had packed the cartridges by accident, and had “no intention” to break Russian law.
Roberts pressed Griner on this point: “You know there are those who say, ‘Come on. How did you not know that you had cartridges in your luggage?’”
“It’s just so easy to have a mental lapse,” Griner replied. “Granted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale. But it doesn’t take away from how that can happen,” she explained.
Griner was sentenced to nine years in prison on Aug. 4, 2022, and in October 2022, a judge denied the appeal filed by Griner’s attorneys.
The sentence landed Griner in a penal colony in the Russian region of Mordovia.
“It’s a work camp. You go there to work,” said Griner. “There’s no rest.” Her job was cutting fabric for Russian military uniforms.
“What were the conditions like there?” Roberts asked.
“Really cold,” Griner said. So cold that her health was impacted and she decided to chop off her long dreadlocks.
“What was that like losing that part of you, too?” Roberts asked Griner.
“Honestly, it just had to happen. We had spiders above my bed — making nests,” she said. “My dreads started to freeze,” she added. “They would just stay wet and cold and I was getting sick. You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do to survive.”
Her arrest came around the same time as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, further increasing tensions between Russia and the U.S. But as the Los Angeles Blade reported on Dec, 8, 2022, Russia agreed to release Griner in exchange for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.
However, before winning her freedom, Griner revealed authorities forced her to write a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“They made me write this letter. It was in Russian,” she said. “I had to ask for forgiveness and thanks from their so-called great leader. I didn’t want to do it, but at the same time I wanted to come home.”
Griner said her heart sank upon boarding the plane to freedom and finding that Paul Whelan, another American the White House said was “wrongfully detained,” wasn’t leaving Russia with her.
“I walked on and didn’t see him, maybe he’s next. Maybe they will bring him next,” she said. “They closed the door, and I was like, are you serious? You’re not going to let this man come home now.”
Griner recounts on the experience in “Coming Home,” a memoir set to be released on May 7.
988 is the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline and is available 24/7 via phone, text or chat to everyone of all ages, orientations and identities. If you are a transgender, nonbinary, or gender-nonconforming person considering suicide, Trans Lifeline can be reached at 877-565-8860. LGBTQ+ youth (ages 24 and younger) can reach the Trevor Project Lifeline at 1-866-488-7386. You can still also contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 24 hours a day, and it’s available to people of all ages and identities.
Additional resources:
If you are in a life-threatening situation, please dial 911.
If you are in crisis, please dial 988 or contact Rainbow Youth Project directly at +1 (317) 643-4888
Sports
Bisexual former umpire sues Major League Baseball for sexual harassment
Brandon Cooper claims female colleague sexually harassed him
A fired former umpire is suing Major League Baseball, claiming he was sexually harassed by a female umpire and discriminated against because of his gender and his sexual orientation.
Brandon Cooper worked in the minor league Arizona Complex League last year, and according to the lawsuit he filed Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan, he identifies as bisexual.
“I wanted my umpiring and ability to speak for itself and not to be labeled as ‘Brandon Cooper the bisexual umpire,’” he told Outsports. “I didn’t want to be labeled as something. It has been a passion of mine to simply make it to the Major Leagues.”
But that didn’t happen. Instead of being promoted, he was fired. His suit names MLB and an affiliated entity, PDL Blue, Inc., and alleges he had endured a hostile work environment and wrongful termination and/or retaliation because of gender and sexual orientation under New York State and New York City law.
“Historically the MLB has had a homogenous roster of umpires working in both the minor and major leagues,” Cooper claims in his suit. “Specifically, to date there has never been a woman who has worked in a (regular) season game played in the majors, and most umpires are still Caucasian men. To try to fix its gender and racial diversity issue, defendants have implemented an illegal diversity quota requiring that women be promoted regardless of merit.”
Cooper claims former umpire Ed Rapuano, now an umpire evaluator, and Darren Spagnardi, an umpire development supervisor, told him in January 2023 that MLB had a hiring quota, requiring that at least two women be among 10 new hires.
According to the suit, Cooper was assigned to spring training last year and was notified by the senior manager of umpire administration, Dusty Dellinger, that even though he received a high rating in June from former big league umpire Jim Reynolds, now an umpire supervisor, that women and minority candidates had to be hired first.
Cooper claims that upon learning Cooper was bisexual, fellow umpire Gina Quartararo insulted him and fellow umpire Kevin Bruno by using homophobic slurs and crude remarks. At that time, Quartararo and Cooper worked on the same umpiring crew and being evaluated for possible promotion to the big leagues.
This season, Quartararo is working as an umpire in the Florida State League, one of nine women who are working as minor league umpires.
Cooper said he notified Dellinger, but instead of taking action against Quartararo, he said MLB ordered Cooper to undergo sensitivity training. According to his lawsuit, he was also accused of violating the minor league anti-discrimination and harassment policy.
Cooper’s suit says he met with MLB Senior Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Billy Bean — who the Los Angeles Blade reported in December is battling cancer.
The lawsuit says at that meeting, Bean told the umpire that Quartararo claimed she was the victim, as the only female umpire in the ACL. Cooper said he told Bean Quartararo regularly used homophobic slurs and at one point physically shoved him. He also claims that he has video evidence, texts and emails to prove his claim.
But he said his complaints to Major League Baseball officials were ignored. His lawsuit said MLB passed him over for the playoffs and fired him in October. He said of the 26 umpires hired with Cooper, he was the only one let go.
Through a spokesperson, MLB declined to comment on pending litigation. Quartararo has also not publicly commented on the lawsuit.
Sports
Brittney Griner, wife expecting first child
WNBA star released from Russian gulag in December 2022
One year after returning to the WNBA after her release from a Russian gulag and declaring, “I’m never playing overseas again,” Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner and her wife announced they have something even bigger coming up this summer.
Cherelle, 31, and Brittney, 33, are expecting their first child in July. The couple shared the news with their 715,000 followers on Instagram.
“Can’t believe we’re less than three months away from meeting our favorite human being,” the caption read, with the hashtag, #BabyGrinerComingSoon and #July2024.
Griner returned to the U.S. in December 2022 in a prisoner swap, more than nine months after being arrested in Moscow for possession of vape cartridges containing prescription cannabis.
In April 2023, at her first news conference following her release, the two-time Olympic gold medalist made only one exception to her vow to never play overseas again: To return to the Summer Olympic Games, which will be played in Paris starting in July, the same month “Baby Griner” is due. “The only time I would want to would be to represent the USA,” she said last year.
Given that the unrestricted free agent is on the roster of both Team USA and her WNBA team, it’s not immediately clear where Griner will be when their first child arrives.
The Griners purchased their “forever home” in Phoenix just last year.
“Phoenix is home,” Griner said at the Mercury’s end-of-season media day, according to ESPN. “Me and my wife literally just got a place. This is it.”
As the Los Angeles Blade reported last December, Griner is working with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts — like Griner, a married lesbian — on an ESPN television documentary as well as a television series for ABC about her life story. Cherelle is executive producer of these projects.
Next month, Griner’s tell-all memoir of her Russian incarceration will be published by Penguin Random House. It’s titled “Coming Home” and the hardcover hits bookstores on May 7.
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