Sports
Sin City Classic LGBT sports tourney returns in mid-Jan.
Event expected to attract more than 6k players including many from D.C.
The 12th annual Sin City Classic sports festival will return on Jan. 17-20 in Las Vegas with about 6,500 LGBT athletes expected to compete in 21 sports.
Originally run as a softball tournament hosted by the Greater Los Angeles Softball Association, the event began receiving requests for more sports to be added to the lineup which has led to steady, successful growth.
The festival provides a competitive, fun and safe environment for amateur LGBT athletes from around the world to come together, compete and connect. This year they have adopted a new initiative, āPlay You,ā which promotes an open environment for everyone to play sports in a safe space.
Formerly known as the Sin City Shootout, the tournament rebranded two years ago as a show of respect for the shootings in Orlando and Las Vegas. Several new features have been added to this yearās festival.
āWe have been experiencing a positive energy and vibe over the last 12 months and are excited to add on new aspects of the festival,ā says Ken Scearce, tournament director for Sin City Classic. āEverything we do outside of the sports venues is an attempt to appeal to both the millennials and the older crowd. Food and alcohol are a good place to start, music is a little more difficult.ā
Four more sports were added this year to their lineup including competitive cheer and esports. A Sunday Funday has been added for athletes who are knocked out of tournament play early. Also new is a Cornhole for Charity event and returning is the Sports Diversity Leadership Conference.
āWe are excited to add the new cornhole event,ā Scearce says. āThe final four teams will get to battle in public at the Friday night registration party.ā
Scearce competes as a softball player in L.A. but will not be playing on one of the expected 240 softball teams in Las Vegas. The event is run entirely by volunteers and as tournament director, he will be stretched to the limit.
His excitement is palpable though and he points to Sin City Classicās 12 sponsors including Toyota, who is returning as the presenting sponsor.
āI am really excited about the opportunity for so many of our sponsors to get to know our athletes,ā Scearce says. āItās incredible that the Los Angeles Dodgers are investing in us and that we are getting these brands in front of everyone and introducing LGBT sports to these brands.ā
Stonewall Sports is a national organization based in D.C. that promotes sports and safe inclusive spaces that go beyond sports. Their sports leagues are now in 16 cities across the United States with Salt Lake City being their most recent addition.
The upcoming Sin City Classic will be the sixth year that Stonewall Sports has sent member cities to the tournament. They are expecting close to 300 of their athletes to be competing in multiple sports.
āSin City Classic is a great event and an opportunity to kick off the new year and compete with other Stonewall teams,ā says Martin Espinoza, co-founder and President of Stonewall Sports. āOur own national tournament hosted every July and our regional tournaments were created from our great experiences at Sin City.ā
To enhance the experience for their member cities, Stonewall Sports provides shuttle bus service to venues in Las Vegas and chips in for team apparel.
āWe are proud to host a meet and greet table again this year at the registration party,ā Espinoza says. āItās great to see everyone from all the cities.ā
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 āmental lapseā on her part ā 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 leagueās vastly underpaid players earn a living, compared to NBA players.
So, she packed while she was āin panic mode,ā Griner said.
āMy packing at that moment was just throwing all my stuff in there and zipping it up and saying, āOK, I’m ready,āā 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.
āI’m just like, āOh, my God.ā Like, āHow did I ā how did I make this mistake?āā Griner said. āI could just visualize everything I worked so hard for just crumbling and going away.ā
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 didnāt always have toilet paper and that the toothpaste they gave her had expired about 15 years ago.
āThat toothpaste was expired,ā she said. āWe used to put it on the black mold to kill the mold on the walls.ā
āThe mattress had a huge blood stain on it, and they give you these thin two sheets,ā she added. āSo you’re basically laying on bars.ā
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: āYou know there are those who say, āCome on. How did you not know that you had cartridges in your luggage?āā
āIt’s just so easy to have a mental lapse,ā Griner replied. āGranted, my mental lapse was on a more grand scale. But it doesn’t take away from how that can happen,ā 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.
āItās a work camp. You go there to work,ā said Griner. āThere’s no rest.ā Her job was cutting fabric for Russian military uniforms.
āWhat were the conditions like there?ā Roberts asked.
āReally cold,ā Griner said. So cold that her health was impacted and she decided to chop off her long dreadlocks.
āWhat was that like losing that part of you, too?ā Roberts asked Griner.
āHonestly, it just had to happen. We had spiders above my bed ā making nests,ā she said. āMy dreads started to freeze,ā she added. āThey would just stay wet and cold and I was getting sick. You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do to survive.ā
Her arrest came around the same time as Russiaās 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 āwrongfully detained,ā 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 āComing Home,ā 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 itās 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.
āI wanted my umpiring and ability to speak for itself and not to be labeled as āBrandon Cooper the bisexual umpire,āā he told Outsports. āI didnāt want to be labeled as something. It has been a passion of mine to simply make it to the Major Leagues.ā
But that didnāt 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.
āHistorically the MLB has had a homogenous roster of umpires working in both the minor and major leagues,ā Cooper claims in his suit. āSpecifically, 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.ā
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.Ā
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.
Cooperās suit says he met with MLB Senior Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Billy Bean ā who the Los Angeles BladeĀ reported in DecemberĀ is battling cancer.Ā
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, āIām never playing overseas again,ā 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.
āCanāt believe weāre less than three months away from meeting our favorite human being,ā 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 āBaby Grinerā is due. āThe only time I would want to would be to represent the USA,ā she said last year.
Given that the unrestricted free agent is on the roster of both Team USA and her WNBA team, itās not immediately clear where Griner will be when their first child arrives.
The Griners purchased their āforever homeā in Phoenix just last year.
āPhoenix is home,ā Griner said at the Mercuryās end-of-season media day, according toĀ ESPN. āMe and my wife literally just got a place. This is it.ā
As the Los Angeles Blade reported last December, Griner is working with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts ā like Griner, a married lesbian ā 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, Grinerās tell-all memoir of her Russian incarceration will be published by Penguin Random House. Itās titled “Coming Home” and the hardcover hits bookstores on May 7.
-
The White House3 days ago
EXCLUSIVE: White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on speaking out and showing up
-
Middle East3 days ago
Tel Aviv authorities cancel Pride parade
-
Maryland5 days ago
Trone discusses transgender niece
-
The White House4 days ago
Jane Rigby awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom