Sports
BLADE ALL STARS SPOTLIGHT: D.C. Furies
Local players enjoy chess-like challenge, physical rigors of rugby
This week in the Washington Blade All Star series, we meet two athletes from the D.C. Furies who are thriving in the sport of rugby. The Furies are a Division 1 team and play fifteens matches in the spring and fall, along with sevens tournaments in the summer.
When her wife Kirsten was reassigned to Andrews Air Force Base in April, 2018, Sam Moorhead checked in to play with a local rugby team but didn’t click with them. She sought out the Furies that summer and found her place with the team.
Growing up in Greenville, S.C., Moorhead played club soccer and was also on her high school soccer team. She started her freshman year at University of South Carolina playing pick up soccer before switching over to club rugby.
“I was like a deer in headlights at first, but quickly found out that I liked the analytical aspect of the sport,” Moorhead says. “Depending on what position you play, there is time to think and it becomes similar to being in a chess game.”
Her eligibility ran out in college and Moorhead continued in the sport by joining an adult women’s club in Columbia where she met her future wife. Moorhead plays as a fly-half and her wife was playing as an 8-man. The two faced off on occasion in practice and scrimmages.
“I am the finesse player making tactical decisions and trying not to get hit,” Moorhead says. “After several tackles by Kirsten, I learned that whenever I heard her distinct footsteps, I should just fall down.”
The pair moved to Dayton, Ohio, for Kirsten to pursue her master’s at The Air Force Institute of Technology. When they arrived in D.C., it was important for Moorhead to seek out a rugby team.
“It’s a built-in community that transcends community pretty quickly and becomes family. You meet people who have a small interest, but are vastly different,” Moorhead says. “Rugby gives me stress relief and it never gets boring. I could play forever.”
After playing with the Furies last fall and elite sevens with them this past summer, Moorhead was nursing an injury for their first double-header match of the season last weekend. She stepped in and played anyway showing her commitment to the team.
“We bleed for each other and the cost of your body makes the connection even deeper,” Moorhead says. “After every match, I can’t wait to get back on the field.”
Liz Linstrom grew up in Woodbridge, Va., and played basketball and soccer through middle school and high school, along with playing club soccer. Looking for something different, she started playing rugby in her first year at William & Mary.
“I was in great shape for my first practice and 15 minutes later, I was bent over, breathing hard and experiencing muscle fatigue,” Linstrom says. “I took that as a challenge.”
She ended up tearing an ACL in her freshman year and remained active in rugby through non-contact drills and coaching. Even though she was aggressive with her post-surgery recovery, she was out of the sport for one year.
Linstrom returned to the pitch for the National Small College Championships at the end of her sophomore year where her team captured third place. She had recovered mentally and physically and was at the top of her game.
She experienced another ACL tear in her senior year and faced a different path because of where she was in her career.
“The second tear was more traumatizing because I was at the end of my college career and I knew how long it would take to recover,” Linstrom says. “After graduation I didn’t even look for jobs, I just focused on recovery.”
One year later, Linstrom joined the Furies and spent the summer of 2018 building her skills, testing her limits and gaining back her confidence. By the middle of their fall season, she was back into full-contact rugby. Despite the injuries, she remains dedicated to the sport.
“I think as a woman, there are not a lot of opportunities to show aggression like you can in rugby. Other sports such as lacrosse allow the men to be more aggressive than the woman,” Linstrom says. “There is still a stigma around women being powerful and rugby gives us the opportunity to show different strengths.”
Linstrom is a utility player who floats into different positions, sometimes inside centre, sometimes as a flanker. She suffered a concussion this summer and is currently sidelined for matches, but still practicing. Going forward, she has thought about what her path might be in the sport.
“I will always contribute in any way that I can, but I want to find a position that I can specialize in,” Linstrom says. “I don’t care where I am playing as long as I am playing. I always want to be ready to hop in and be my best.”
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.’”
N.Y. lawmaker vows ‘Pride flag will fly again’ at Stonewall Monument
Attitude! French ice dancers nail ‘Vogue’ routine
Philippines Supreme Court rules same-sex couples can co-own property
Disney’s Gay Days ‘has not been canceled’ despite political challenges
Pride flag removed from Stonewall Monument as Trump targets LGBTQ landmarks
LGBTQ Venezuelans in Colombia uncertain about homeland’s future
D.C. bar Rush facing eviction on charge of failing to pay rent
Blade, Pride House LA announce 2028 Olympics partnership
Calendar: February 6-12
