Local
D.C. radio hosts suspended for segment on trans college athlete
‘Sports Reporters’ co-hosts “temporarily removed” from air after referring to Gabrielle Ludwig as ‘it’ during Dec. 6 segment.
Two D.C. radio hosts criticized a transgender college basketball player on air last week (Photo by Justin Smith via Wikimedia)
LGBT advocates have sharply criticized two local sports talk radio hosts who used transphobic references to describe a transgender college basketball player.
Andy Pollin introduced a former Washington Post reporter’s article on Gabrielle Ludwig, who plays on the women’s basketball team at Mission College in Santa Clara, Calif., that USA Today published on Dec. 5 at the start of a Thursday segment of “The Sports Reporters” on ESPN 980. Co-host Steve Czaban suggested Ludwig could “be a Russian chick” before he cackled and suggested one can become eligible to play basketball at the junior college if they “lose testicles.”
Pollin further questioned whether the Bay Area school should have allowed Ludwig to join the team because of her age before he once again highlighted her gender identity and expression.
“Whatever you go to do to scratch that inner itch or quell those inner demons, that’s fine, but don’t go playing sports then and don’t go playing sports saying, ‘But I’ve got the rights of everyone else,’” Pollin said. “Yeah, you’ve got the rights to live as a human being with other people respecting you and everything else, but athletics is different. And a man’s body and a man’s DNA is different than a woman’s. That’s why we have separate leagues for separate genders.”
A voice then said “Just like a woman,” before Pollin again questioned whether Mission College should have allowed Ludwig to play on their women’s basketball team.
“The net net is she, she/he has had a lot of problems in his/her life,” Czaban said.
Pollin added ‘it’ is the “politically correct term” to which to refer to Ludwig.
“Whatever it is and this basketball is helping him/her to transform his/her life into a better life, such as it is,” Czaban said at the end of the segment to which the Washington Blade has linked.
Ludwig responded to the segment during an interview Outsports.com, an LGBT-themed sports website, published earlier on Tuesday.
“These two people in Washington, D.C., just tore my life apart, and they don’t even know me,” she said. “They did it in respect to how I look, how I’m built, the tattoos on my body. They took great pride in humiliating me in the national public. I don’t know if I’m supposed to cry or scream or beat them up. It’s affecting my sleep, it’s affecting my confidence.”
Pollin and Czaban made a brief on-air apology during their Monday show after the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation reached out to the station.
Aaron McQuade, director of news and field strategy at GLAAD, wrote on the organization’s website that ESPN 980 management “responded quickly to our outreach, with a clear understanding of why the content that aired last week was so offensive.” He added Pollin and Czaban’s on-air apology for using “it” to refer to Ludwig “failed to address the rest of an extremely offensive segment.”
“We strongly believe two of our employees crossed the line when they referred to Ms. Ludwig as ‘it’ on their program last Thursday,” Chuck Sapienza, vice president of programming for ESPN980 told the Washington Blade in a statement. “Such intolerance and insensitivity will never be tolerated by this company. This situation was handled swiftly and internally. Due to the nature of their contracts, we are not at liberty to publicly discuss any actions that were taken.”
ESPN spokesperson Josh Krulewitz also criticized the segment in a statement to Outsports.com.
“The two are not employees of ESPN and made the comments on an affiliated radio station that controls its own local content,” he said. “The offensive commentary goes completely against ESPN’s company culture and values. We have expressed our significant dissatisfaction to the station’s management.”
Cyd Zeigler, Jr., co-founder of Outsports.com, further criticized Pollin and Czaban’s on-air apology.
“It was among the least sincere non-apologies in history,” he wrote on Monday. “The only things they’re really be sorry for are being caught, and also how overly sensitive the faggots and the trannies are these days. I’m sure they were rolling their eyes with every word of their non-apology. You don’t say what they said without meaning every word of it — this apology doesn’t change that, it reinforces it.”
Zeigler further described the men as “a disgrace to their profession” who should be suspended without pay.
“My only saving grace is knowing there are people in my corner including the kids that I coach, and the team we played on Saturday,” Ludwig told Outsports.com. “They invited me into their locker room and took pictures. And they posted them on Facebook and said, ‘This is one of the nicest players we’ve ever played and you can’t judge a book by its cover.’”
ESPN 980 said in a statement released after the Blade published its original story that Pollin and Czaban have been “temporarily removed” from “The Sports Reporters”
“We strongly believe two of our employees crossed the line when discussing a transsexual person on their program last Thursday,” the station said. “Such intolerance and insensitivity will never be tolerated by this company. Due to the nature of their conversation, the pair have been temporarily removed from ESPN980’s Sports Reporters program.”
Virginia
DOJ seeks to join lawsuit against Loudoun County over trans student in locker room
Three male high school students suspended after complaining about classmate
The Justice Department has asked to join a federal lawsuit against Loudoun County Public Schools over the way it handled the case of three male high school students who complained about a transgender student in a boys’ locker room.
The Washington Blade earlier this year reported Loudoun County public schools suspended the three boys and launched a Title IX investigation into whether they sexually harassed the student after they said they felt uncomfortable with their classmate in the locker room at Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn.
The parents of two of the boys filed a lawsuit against Loudoun County public schools in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria. The Richmond-based Founding Freedoms Law Center and America First Legal, which White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller co-founded, represent them.
The Justice Department in a Dec. 8 press release announced that “it filed legal action against the Loudoun County (Va.) School Board (Loudoun County) for its denial of equal protection based on religion.”
“The suit alleges that Loudoun County applied Policy 8040, which requires students and faculty to accept and promote gender ideology, to two Christian, male students in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” reads the press release.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the press release said “students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate.”
“Loudoun County’s decision to advance and promote gender ideology tramples on the rights of religious students who cannot embrace ideas that deny biological reality,” said Dhillon.
Outgoing Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and outgoing Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares in May announced an investigation into the case.
The Virginia Department of Education in 2023 announced the new guidelines for trans and nonbinary students for which Youngkin asked. Equality Virginia and other advocacy groups claim they, among other things, forcibly out trans and nonbinary students.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights in February launched an investigation into whether Loudoun County and four other Northern Virginia school districts’ policies in support of trans and nonbinary students violate Title IX and President Donald Trump’s executive order that prohibits federally funded educational institutions from promoting “gender ideology.”
District of Columbia
Capital Pride announces change in date for 2026 D.C. Pride parade and festival
Events related to U.S. 250th anniversary and Trump birthday cited as reasons for change
The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C. based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, has announced it is changing the dates for the 2026 Capital Pride Parade and Festival from the second weekend in June to the third weekend.
“For over a decade, Capital Pride has taken place during the second weekend in June, but in 2026, we are shifting our dates in response to the city’s capacity due to major events and preparations for the 250th anniversary of the United States,” according to a Dec. 9 statement released by Capital Pride Alliance.
The statement says the parade will take place on Saturday, June 20, 2026, with the festival and related concert taking place on June 21.
“This change ensures our community can gather safely and without unnecessary barriers,” the statement says. “By moving the celebration, we are protecting our space and preserving Pride as a powerful act of visibility, solidarity, and resistance,” it says.
Ryan Bos, the Capital Pride Alliance CEO and President, told the Washington Blade the change in dates came after the group conferred with D.C. government officials regarding plans for a number of events in the city on the second weekend in June. Among them, he noted, is a planned White House celebration of President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday and other events related to the U.S. 250th anniversary, which are expected to take place from early June through Independence Day on July 4.
The White House has announced plans for a large June 14, 2026 celebration on the White House south lawn of Trump’s 80th birthday that will include a large-scale Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event involving boxing and wrestling competition.
Bos said the Capital Pride Parade will take place along the same route it has in the past number of years, starting at 14th and T Streets, N.W. and traveling along 14th Street to Pennsylvania Ave., where it will end. He said the festival set for the following day will also take place at its usual location on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., between 2nd Street near the U.S. Capitol, to around 7th Street, N.W.
“Our Pride events thrive because of the passion and support of the community,” Capital Pride Board Chair Anna Jinkerson said in the statement. “In 2026, your involvement is more important than ever,” she said.
District of Columbia
Three women elected leaders of Capital Pride Alliance board
Restructured body includes chair rather than president as top leader
The Capital Pride Alliance, the D.C.-based group that organizes the city’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, announced it has restructured its board of directors and elected for the first time three women to serve as leaders of the board’s Executive Committee.
“Congratulations to our newly elected Executive Officers, making history as Capital Pride Alliance’s first all-women Board leadership,” the group said in a statement.
“As we head into 2026 with a bold new leadership structure, we’re proud to welcome Anna Jinkerson as Board Chair, Kim Baker as Board Treasurer, and Taylor Lianne Chandler as Board Secretary,” the statement says.
In a separate statement released on Nov. 20, Capital Pride Alliance says the restructured Board now includes the top leadership posts of Chair, Treasurer, and Secretary, replacing the previous structure of President and Vice President as the top board leaders.
It says an additional update to the leadership structure includes a change in title for longtime Capital Pride official Ryan Bos from executive director to chief executive officer and president.
According to the statement, June Crenshaw, who served as acting deputy director during the time the group organized WorldPride 2025 in D.C., will now continue in that role as permanent deputy director.
The statement provides background information on the three newly elected women Board leaders.
• Anna Jinkerson (chair), who joined the Capital Pride Alliance board in 2022, previously served as the group’s vice president for operations and acting president. “A seasoned non-profit executive, she currently serves as Assistant to the President and CEO and Chief of Staff at Living Cities, a national member collaborative of leading philanthropic foundations and financial institutions committed to closing income and wealth gaps in the United States and building an economy that works for everyone.”
• Kim Baker (treasurer) is a “biracial Filipino American and queer leader,” a “retired, disabled U.S. Army veteran with more than 20 years of service and extensive experience in finance, security, and risk management.” She has served on the Capital Pride Board since 2018, “bringing a proven track record of steady, principled leadership and unwavering dedication to the LGBTQ+ community.”
• Taylor Lianne Chandler (Secretary) is a former sign language interpreter and crisis management consultant. She “takes office as the first intersex and trans-identifying member of the Executive Committee.” She joined the Capital Pride Board in 2019 and previously served as executive producer from 2016 to 2018.
Bos told the Washington Blade in a Dec. 2 interview that the Capital Pride board currently has 12 members, and is in the process of interviewing additional potential board members.
“In January we will be announcing in another likely press release the full board,” Bos said. “We are finishing the interview process of new board members this month,” he said. “And they will take office to join the board in January.”
Bos said the organization’s rules set a cap of 25 total board members, but the board, which elects its members, has not yet decided how many additional members it will select and a full 25-member board is not required.
The Nov. 20 Capital Pride statement says the new board executive members will succeed the organization’s previous leadership team, which included Ashley Smith, who served as president for eight years before he resigned earlier this year; Anthony Musa, who served for seven years as vice president of board engagement; Natalie Thompson, who served eight years on the executive committee; and Vince Micone, who served for eight years as vice president of operations.
“I am grateful for the leadership, dedication, and commitment shown by our former executive officers — Ashley, Natalie, Anthony, and Vince — who have been instrumental in CPA’s growth and the exceptional success of WorldPride 2025,” Bos said in the statement.
“I look forward to collaborating with Anna in her new role, as well as Kim and Taylor in theirs, as we take on the important work ahead, prepare for Capital Pride 2026, and expand our platform and voice through Pride365,” Bos said.
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