National
Yogi Berra lends name to sports equality movement
Straight allies partnering with LGBT groups to combat discrimination
Legendary Yankees catcher Yogi Berra is an Athlete Ally ambassador. (Photo by Martyna Borkowski; courtesy Wikimedia Commons)
In a little-noticed development, famed New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra agreed last year to become a ceremonial ambassador for Athlete Ally, an organization that partners with big name sports figures to advocate for full acceptance of LGBT athletes in professional sports.
In addition to allowing Athlete Ally to use his name in promoting LGBT equality, the nationally acclaimed baseball Hall of Famer embraced a proposal to include an LGBT exhibit in the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center located on the campus of Montclair State University in New Jersey.
“Yogi is a wonderful example making good choices,” said David Kaplan, executive director of the Berra Museum. “All of our programs and exhibits are about fairness and respect. And our involvement with Athlete Ally and shedding some light on this cause was just so consistent with our mission,” he said.
Berra declined an interview request, due to health issues.
Athlete Ally is among at least a dozen organizations that have either sprung up or expanded their mission in the past several years to take on the cause of LGBT athletes in American sports, both on the professional level and on the high school and college level.
Sam Marchiano, Athlete Ally’s outreach director, said Berra is one of 100 professional athlete ambassadors the group has lined up to advocate on behalf of LGBT equality. She said another 100 college athlete ambassadors have been recruited.
Photos of many of them, including Berra, are prominently featured on the group’s website along with the text of a pledge that Athlete Ally asks all of its allies to sign.
“I pledge to lead my athletic community to respect and welcome all persons, regardless of their perceived or actual sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression,” the pledge says. “Beginning right now, I will do my part to promote the best of athletics by making all players feel respected on and off the field,” it says.
Cyd Zeigler, co-founder and editor of Out Sports, an online publication that reports on LGBT people in sports, said Athlete Ally is the only organization that currently operates exclusively as a straight ally group.
He noted that all the others, including longtime existing groups like Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, have sports-related programs that work with straight allies but are focused mostly on LGBT athletes.
According to Zeigler, the growing number of professional athletes that have come out as gay or lesbian in recent years has begun to change the focus of what he calls the LGBT sports movement from supportive allies to LGBT athletes themselves.
“I come from the perspective that straight allies are fading very quickly into the distance of this movement because there are so many LGBT athletes and LGBT people who are joining the sports movement that straight allies just aren’t needed anymore,” he said.
David McFarland, executive director of United for Equality in Sports and Entertainment, and Wade Davis, executive director of You Can Play Project, two recently formed groups that advocate for LGBT athletes, each agree that the growing number of LGBT athletes coming out publicly is an encouraging development.
But the two also said the number of LGBT athletes coming out is far less than what it should be and that most LGBT athletes on the high school, college and professional level remain reluctant to self-identify as LGBT.
“While many of the most powerful sports institutions have made great strides to publicly support and embrace LGBT equality such as the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, the National Hockey League, etc., the truth is that sexual orientation and gender identity remain problematic for many of these organizations within sports at all levels,” McFarland said.
“That’s the reality,” he said. “If this were not the case we would see hundreds if not thousands of LGBT athletes on the playing fields,” said McFarland. “And we would see many more coaches and sports administrators that felt safe enough to come out without the risk of losing their jobs.”
Davis is gay and a former NFL player who, among other teams, played for the Washington Redskins. He said he knows of a number of professional athletes in several different sports that are out to their teammates but are not out publicly.
Davis and McFarland said their respective groups either currently provide or plan to provide educational resources, including training sessions, for players and coaches to dispel myths about LGBT people and lessen the fears and underlying feelings that make it hard for LGBT athletes to come out.
Another of the newer generation of advocacy groups for LGBT athletes is ‘Go! Athletes,’ which consists of a nationwide network of mostly LGBT student athletes and their straight allies. With members in cities throughout the country, the group, which was founded in 2008, has been “spreading the word about LGBT athletes and our experiences with coming out, receiving support, fighting homophobia, transphobia, racism, sexism, and other anti-LGBT discrimination in the world of athletics,” a statement on the group’s website says.
The website says Georgetown University student Craig Casey Jr., who’s gay and was elected as an Advisory Neighborhood Commission member, serves as a Go! Athletes Collegiate Ambassador for Washington, D.C.
The group Br{ache the Silence also works with LGBT student athletes in its mission to “shift the focus from homophobia to inclusion,” it says on its website, freedomsounds.org.
“Br{ache the Silence (BST) advances LGBTQ inclusion in sports through professional college campus integration initiatives and public awareness campaigns,” a message on the website says.
The New York-based Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) advocates for LGBT youth in school sports programs beginning in grades K through 12 through its Changing the Game Project. Among other things, the project works with gym teachers and school athletic programs to curtail and eliminate anti-LGBT bias targeting students.
“What you see at the pro level really starts in kindergarten and on the playground in recess time,” GLSEN official Robert McGarry told the Blade in a past interview. “We’ve been doing training across the country with mostly high school coaches and physical education teachers who seem very receptive and anxious to have this kind of training because it’s not something they get in their preparation and they don’t know what to do.”
GLAAD spokesperson Rich Ferraro said GLAAD for several years now has worked closely with major league sports organizations to persuade them to adopt internal non-discrimination polices protecting LGBT athletes. Virtually all of them have done so, including Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League.
Ferraro said the GLAAD sports project has also lobbied professional sports leagues and teams to make public statements endorsing LGBT equality and condemning anti-LGBT bullying. In response to efforts by GLAAD and other groups, the New York Yankees recently adopted a strict policy prohibiting homophobic taunts and chants by fans at Yankee Stadium during games that calls for ejecting those who violate the policy, Ferraro said.
In its Athletes for Equality program, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation draws attention to LGBT rights by arranging for runners, both LGBT and straight, to participate in marathon races to raise money for the HRC Foundation, according to foundation official Jay Brown.
Brown said HRC sponsored a marathon and half marathon in Akron, Ohio, earlier this month as part of the Gay Games. He said Athletes for Equality will be participating in October in the annual Marine Corps Marathon in D.C.
Zeigler said another recent addition to the LGBT sports advocacy scene was the creation in 2012 by leaders of these and other groups of the LGBT Sports Coalition, which serves as an association of organizations and individuals working to end anti-LGBT bias in sports by 2016.
Last October, Nike Corporation, which bills itself as the world’s largest sports company, donated $200,000 to the LGBT Sports Coalition, expressing strong support for the coalition’s efforts to end bias and discrimination in sports.
Following is a partial list of LGBT athlete advocacy groups.
Athlete Ally
Changing the Game Project
You Can Play Project
United for Equality in Sports and Entertainment
Outsports
GLAAD Sports Project
Go! Athletes
Br{ache the Silence
Homophobia in Sports Project
LGBT Sports Coalition
National
Blade reporters reflect on covering Pulse massacre 10 years ago
Orlando stepped up to comfort and support its LGBTQ community
Friday marks 10 years since a gunman killed 49 people inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla.
The massacre, which, at the time was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, left the LGBTQ community in this country and around the world reeling. It also prompted renewed calls for gun control.
The OnePulse Foundation, which Pulse owner Barbara Poma founded after the massacre, raised upwards of $20 million for a memorial that never materialized.
The city of Orlando in 2023 purchased the Pulse property for $2 million. Crews earlier this year demolished the former nightclub. The city of Orlando has pledged $12 million for a permanent memorial that is scheduled to open in 2027.
Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff and International News Editor Michael K. Lavers reported from Orlando in the days after the massacre. Here are their reflections a decade later.
Describe the scene when you arrived in Orlando. Where did you go first?
NAFF: Most mainstream reporters headed for the Pulse nightclub, but it was already roped off with police keeping bystanders at least a full city block away. Instead, I hurried to The Center, Orlando’s LGBTQ community center, downtown. I expected to find it locked down with tight security but instead the doors were flung open and everyone inside was busy at work. No tears, just dedicated staff and volunteers working the phones to secure visas and free plane tickets for relatives of the victims. The director gave me a tour and in the back storage room were pallets and pallets of bottled water stacked to the ceiling. When I asked what all the water was for, he said the city had issued a call for blood donations and the lines to donate were 1,500 deep in 100-degree heat. So The Center drove around to all the sites to deliver water to all those standing in line.
That scene was so inspiring and a testament to the strength and resiliency of the LGBTQ community. We’d seen tragedy before and knew how to respond.
LAVERS: I arrived in Orlando about 14 hours after the massacre took place. The city was shellshocked.
Equality Florida, the state’s LGBTQ advocacy group, and other organizations held a press conference at The Center shortly after my flight from D.C. landed. I drove there from the airport. Terry DeCarlo, who was The Center’s executive director at the time, along with then-Equality Florida Executive Director Nadine Smith and others spoke on behalf of a community that was reeling. The Center at the press conference handed out business cards that read, “You matter.” I had it in my wallet when I drove to a makeshift memorial that was a block from Pulse — the police had cordoned off the area immediately around the nightclub. A local resident who I interviewed told me that she did not know if her friends who were at Pulse when the gunman opened fire survived. Another person with whom I spoke shared a similar story.
A torrential downpour began shortly after I arrived. The storm was an apt metaphor for the raw emotion of that horrific day.
What’s your most prominent memory of covering the Pulse massacre?
NAFF: I was covering a vigil in downtown Orlando when then-Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s motorcade arrived unannounced. To that point, he had not addressed the LGBTQ angle and seemed to be downplaying the fact that this was an attack on our community. I hurried to the front row as he held an impromptu news conference. To my dismay, he took only three short questions from TV reporters then rushed away. I grabbed his communications director and insisted that Scott take a question from the LGBTQ media. She agreed and told me to wait next to the SUV. When Scott approached, I asked him, “What is your message to LGBTQ Floridians?”
To my surprise, he sputtered, stammered, and broke into tears before telling me, “This was an attack, what else can you say? This was an attack against the gays, an attack against Hispanics, an attack against our country, our nation and it’s disgusting. The biggest thing we do now is ask how to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
It was his first public acknowledgment that the LGBTQ community was the target of the attack.
LAVERS: Two moments stand out for me.
The first moment is when then-President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Orlando on June 16, four days after the massacre. I was one of the reporters who the White House asked to be part of the local press pool. I was about 50 feet away from Obama and Biden when they placed bouquets with 49 flowers — one for each of the victims — at a makeshift memorial between City Hall and the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Orlando. Obama in remarks he made to the press pool mentioned one of the gay victims who had once said, “We cannot be afraid.” The emotions of the last four days simply became too much, and I broke down. Another reporter who was part of the press pool who was standing next to me realized I had broken down. She put her hand on my back to console me.
The second moment came a few weeks later when I was in Puerto Rico to cover the community’s response to the massacre and to interview victims’ relatives. Orlando has a very large Puerto Rican community, and nearly half of those who died at Pulse were of Puerto Rican descent.
I drove to Caguas, a city that is roughly 20 miles south of San Juan, the island’s capital, on July 7, and interviewed Aida Velázquez in her small apartment. Her son, Frankie “Jimmy” de Jesús, died at Pulse. Aida talked about her son, and she showed me pictures of him. Jimmy also danced Jíbaro, a Puerto Rican folk dance. The interview took place less than a month after the massacre — Jimmy’s funeral took place in Caguas less than two weeks earlier.
I sat in my car after the interview and sobbed uncontrollably for nearly five minutes. Nothing can possibly prepare you for interviewing a mother who had just lost her child in the most horrific way possible.
How did the local community respond and what about their response gave you hope or inspiration?
NAFF: In addition to the staff at The Center working to assist victims and their families, everyday Orlando residents stepped up to help however they could. At the downtown vigils, straight mothers and fathers carried signs offering hugs to anyone who needed them. I encountered a group of young teenage males who approached a group of law enforcement officers and appeared to perform for them. When they finished, I asked what they were doing and they told me that they were straight friends who lived in Orlando and wanted to do something to help so they composed an uplifting rap song and walked around performing it for anyone who needed cheering up.
LAVERS: The way that Orlando rallied around the LGBTQ community was simply inspiring.
Imam Muhammad Musri, president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida, at a memorial service that took place at the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center on June 13 said his organization was “united as Americans when it comes to standing with the LGBT community and their rights to live freely and to practice their lives here.” This comment underscored the outpouring of support that Orlando showed its LGBTQ community after Pulse. It was also a call for the better angels among us to reject hate in all of its forms.
What surprised you most about the experience?
NAFF: I was most surprised — and moved — after talking to Rev. Debreita Taylor of Oasis Fellowship Ministries, an LGBTQ-affirming ministry.
“My message is love. Period. Love. Period. There’s nothing in the word of God that faith leaders can go to that teaches hate,” she told me. “Have faith and believe that evil and hate can be eradicated one person at a time. How do you treat someone? How do you embrace someone who treats you wrong? We all bleed, laugh, hope and have great victories and major defeats. And so, you know me, even if you don’t know my name — I’m you.”
LAVERS: It admittedly took me quite a while to fully process what I experienced in Orlando — I was focused on doing my job as a reporter, which was to cover the story, and, most importantly, show the human impact of what had happened. I suppose one surprising aspect of the time I spent in Orlando was that I found myself feeling more defiant against those who seek to destroy our community. They want us to live in fear, and I refuse to give them that satisfaction.
What, if anything, changed as a result of Pulse?
NAFF: In the immediate aftermath of the attack, queer spaces began rethinking their approach to security, which has served us well in the years since. Sadly, just a year later, Pulse was bumped to the No. 2 deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history when a gunman opened fire on the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas, killing 60 people. Americans and their politicians never learn from these largely preventable tragedies. The carnage continues.
LAVERS: Gun violence remains a shameful scourge in this country. Our community remains vulnerable to violence and discrimination. President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and other politicians here in Washington, around the country, and overseas continue to use our community to advance an anti-equality agenda. The carnage continues, as my colleague correctly notes, but our community remains strong and defiant. That gives me hope.
National
Queen Jean is Tony’s first transgender winner
Designer/activist wins for work on ‘Cats: The Jellicle Ball’
It was a historic night at the 79th annual Tony Awards on Sunday as Queen Jean won the award for Best Costume Design of a Musical, making her the first out transgender person to win a Tony.
“This experience has been monumental. We are here for the legacy of queer people, trans people,” she said. “We are taking up space in ways we have to take up space. We have to shift the paradigm. So I just want to say, thank you all so much for this incredible honor. The world right now is deeply, deeply combating so many ailments, and we know as a society that when we come together, we can make real, permanent change.”
She won the award for her work on “Cats: The Jellicle Ball” and was also nominated for best costume design of a play for “Liberation.”
In addition to her stage work, Queen Jean is the founder of Black Trans Liberation, an organization that supports trans and gender-nonconforming people in New York City.
National
Madonna turns Times Square into massive dance floor
Pop icon celebrates Pride month with surprise performance
Pop icon Madonna celebrated Pride month with a pop-up performance in New York City’s Times Square on Thursday to the delight of 50,000 fans.
She performed for about 15 minutes high above street level, including several songs from her new album “Confessions II” due on July 3, along with a trio of songs from the first “Confessions on a Dance Floor.”
In addition to the brand new “Love Sensation,” she performed “I Feel So Free” and “Bring Your Love,” plus “Hung Up,” “Get Together” and “I Love New York.” She wished the crowd a happy Pride season; the event was shared with audiences through Grindr’s first-ever livestream.
Gay 1920s-era Hollywood star to be honored in Staunton, Va.
Why I’m supporting Gary Goodweather for D.C. mayor
Don’t just vote for change — vote for Hope Solomon for mayor
Vote Kenyan McDuffie for D.C. mayor
Your queer D.C. voting guide
Timothy Nelson on the premiere of his opera ‘Song of Sakuntala’
PHOTOS: ‘Soul Divas’
‘Mighty Real’ explores history of LGBTQ music
D.C.’s housing reality: Cautious optimism meets landlord strain
