National
Meet the trans editor covering Major League Baseball
Bobbie Dittmeier combines dual passions for sports, journalism
Bobbie Dittmeier (Photo courtesy of Dittmeier)
A day at the office at MLB.com for Bobbie Dittmeier is just about the same for her as it is for other editors working to produce news stories on developments in Major League Baseball.
Upon coming to the New York office, she’ll speak with the copy chief about potential articles for the day with other editors, who will then assign the stories to reporters.
“We have a lot of stories coming in everyday,” Dittmeier says. “We have 30 different reporters plus other columnists, part-timers and interns. We have a lot of writers for our staff. We cover all 30 teams full time. So, there’s a lot of copy that comes into the desk every day.”
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The big news in recent weeks? The biogenesis investigation, which has led to the suspension of several players, including New York Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez.
“Waiting for the news on Alex Rodriguez is like waiting for your wife to go into labor,” she says. “You got the bags packed and the cars gassed, and you’re just going about your regular routine waiting for the pager to go off. And knowing that when the pager does go off that the next 12 to 18 hours is going to be crazy.”
But Dittmeier, who spoke to the Washington Blade earlier this month, is unique among other editors and baseball enthusiasts working at MLB.com: She’s transgender and the only openly LGBT person on staff at the site.
Dittmeier says being the only openly transgender person on staff hasn’t been an issue on the job, which she attributes to changing attitudes over time and her own job performance.
“I think the most significant part of it is that I have a lot of experience and I do good work, if I may say so myself,” Dittmeier says. “And I think that the people I work for value that. They certainly didn’t want to throw me out of the office for being transgender.”
One exception to the acceptance she’s found was what Dittmeier calls a “blip” among two individuals upon her announcement she would transition. Reluctant to go into detail, she characterizes it as more of a misunderstanding and says neither of those people works at MLB.com any longer.
In 2007, after working for MLB.com for six years, Dittmeier announced she would transition from male to female. She had already married and had a child. And it wasn’t her first attempt; she made an earlier attempt at transitioning in the 1990s.
“It was really only after I had been at MLB for a number of years that I felt comfortable and confident enough that transition wasn’t going to put me on the street,” Dittmeier said. “So, I felt I had job security, I knew the people I worked for, I knew that they knew I do a good job, that I’m good at what I do, so I didn’t think it would be that much of an issue. So, I worked toward it for a couple years, starting probably around 2005, and then finally culminating in coming out at work in 2007.”
Dittmeier says she “always kind of felt something different” about her when she was growing up in Long Island during her youth, but wasn’t at the time able to identify it because of a lack of information.
“I kind of figured it out in my teens, but you don’t act upon it because, again, it was a different time,” Dittmeier says. “You didn’t know if you were going to be ostracized from your family, you didn’t have the resources, you certainly didn’t have the Internet. Going to a shrink was really frowned upon. You certainly didn’t talk about these things with your parents.”
At the same time growing up, Dittmeier was an avid enthusiast of all things baseball and newsprint. After school, she would read the sports columns in Newsday, a Pulitzer Prize-winning paper that was distributed in her hometown.
“And it was an afternoon paper, so it would come to the house during the day, and I would come home from school, and the first thing I would do before I went out to play ball was I would make myself a sandwich and I would read the newspaper, then I would go out and play ball,” Dittmeier says. “So, I always loved journalism. I always loved writing.”
Dittmeier started in the business of sports writing as a beat reporter covering hockey and horseracing, mostly in Westchester County just outside of New York, and then in Albany for a number of years. She wanted to get involved in baseball, but didn’t have the opportunity. Landing the job at MLB.com 12 years ago made that dream come true.
One recent big news story hit close to home. In July, Major League Baseball announced that it had adopted an employment non-discrimination policy prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation. Dittmeier says she didn’t cover the story personally, although MLB.com had a reporter, Paul Hagen, covering it.
“Personally, it doesn’t impact me at all, I don’t think,” Dittmeier says. “But I’m certainly glad to see Major League Baseball take it to that level and respond like that. I think that’s more for clubhouses, players, the teams more than me.”
The policy doesn’t cover gender identity, but Dittmeier isn’t discouraged. New York City, where she lives and works, has employment non-discrimination protections based on gender identity.
“It’s not troubling for me personally,” Dittmeier says. “It would be nice if they took a look at that. But again, for me, personally I don’t think that I’m at any kind of risk as long as I’m doing my job well. If I don’t do my job well, then I’m subject to changes just like everybody else. If it’s not there, it would be nice if they would include it, I’m sure.”
Asked about the prevalence of gay players in Major League Baseball, Dittmeier insists there are such players who haven’t made their sexual orientation or gender identity public yet.
“There has to be,” Dittmeier says. “I remember having a debate with a hockey coach years and years ago who insisted there were no gay players anywhere in professional hockey, and I told him I thought that was ridiculous. If the number is 10 percent of the population is gay, then there has to be.”
But even with the MLB’s non-discrimination policy on sexual orientation in place, Dittmeier says it would take a player with exceptional skills to come out as gay — more talent than what an average baseball player normally has.
“If you are hitting 300 and you’re a perennial all-star, and you happen to be [gay, bi or trans], your chances of successfully coming out are pretty good,” Dittmeier says. “If you’re going up and down between Triple-A and the major leagues, that’s a tough one, because if it comes down to a decision between that player and someone else as to whether they’re going to make the roster, then you have to worry about someone, consciously or unconsciously, choosing the other player because of your sexual orientation.”
Although he’s not a baseball player, the most notable coming out of a gay athlete this year was former Washington Wizards center Jason Collins. It’s his status as a veteran that Dittmeier says made that coming out possible.
“He’s 34 years old,” Dittmeier says. “He’s a good ball player at this point in his career. If, for some reason, he discontinues to play, he’s had a pretty good career. So he doesn’t have very much to lose. When he was 23, 24, 25 years old, he certainly had a lot more to lose than he does now. I think security is really, really important.”
Dittmeier says she’s seen attitudes change positively in recent decades, and expects those to change even further as time progresses — particularly for transgender people like herself.
“I know most people don’t know someone who is transgender, but certainly most people know someone else who’s LGBT,” Dittmeier says. “And 20 years ago, I don’t think you could say that. Once you know someone, either someone in your life or someone you get to know, someone they work with or whatever, they understand it better. I guess that’s probably like with anything in life.”
CORRECTIONS: An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of MLB.com reporter Paul Hagen. It was also incorrect about the position that Alex Rodriguez currently plays and Dittmeier’s hometown. The article has also been updated to clarify that New York City has transgender non-discrimination protections. The Blade regrets the errors.
State Department
State Department implements anti-trans bathroom policy
Memo notes directive corresponds with White House executive order
The State Department on April 20 announced employees cannot use bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.
The Daily Signal, a conservative news website, reported the State Department announced the new policy in a memo titled “Updates Regarding Biological Sex and Intimate Spaces, Including Restrooms.”
The State Department has not responded to the Washington Blade’s request for comment on the directive.
“The administration affirms that there are two sexes — male and female — and that federal facilities should operate on this objective and longstanding basis to ensure consistency, privacy, and safety in shared spaces,” State Department spokesperson Tommy Piggot told the Daily Signal. “In line with President Trump’s executive order this provides clear, uniform guidance to the department by grounding policy in biological sex as determined at birth.”
President Donald Trump shortly after he took office in January 2025 issued an executive order that directed the federal government to only recognize two genders: male and female. The sweeping directive also ordered federal government agencies to “effectuate this policy by taking appropriate action to ensure that intimate spaces designated for women, girls, or females (or for men, boys, or males) are designated by sex and not identity.”
The Daily Signal notes the new State Department policy “does not prohibit single-occupancy restrooms.”
National
I’m telling the scared little girl I once was it’s okay to feel free
This week is Lesbian Visibility Week
Uncloseted Media published this article on April 23.
By SOPHIE HOLLAND | At 13 years old, I remember looking in the mirror in my Toronto bathroom and thinking, “Yeah, I’m a lesbian.” At the time, I thought it was a dirty word. Thinking back, it could be because the first time I heard it was when a family member said, “I don’t know what a lesbian is, they are like aliens.”
And although I walked around in camouflage Crocs with a rainbow My Little Pony charm, plaid knee-length shorts and a shark tooth necklace (yes, these are all, in my opinion, stereotypically lesbian apparel!), I didn’t feel like I fit the mold. The longer I thought about it, the worse I felt, so I buried my feelings deep inside.
Now I am 25, and I have been out since I was 22. Three years ago, I never could have imagined that I’d be working for a queer news publication and celebrating Lesbian Visibility Week, an annual event meant to honor and uplift lesbian perspectives and highlight the hardships our community faces. To me, LVW is so important because, frankly, it has been an absolute shit show getting here, to a place where I feel love and joy most days.
I think back to the frustration of constantly being asked, “Do you have a boyfriend?” Of watching princess movies and seeing a broken girl only find herself when her prince charming arrives. I remember listening to music that was always about heterosexual relationships. I remember feeling left out in high school when, one by one, my friends got boyfriends.
I tried the boyfriend, and I tried really hard for it to work at a large detriment to my wellbeing. I brainwashed myself into thinking I was probably bisexual, which I told my closest friends around 16 and unsuccessfully told my parents at the same age. I was probably subconsciously using this as a litmus test of their acceptance and to soothe the anxiety I felt around my sexuality.
Learning to love who I am did not only come from me unraveling my internalized lesbophobia and dissecting the oppressive societal messages of heteronormativity. It came from meeting an awesome community of lesbians and queers. I found people who understood my worldview and who showed me the ropes. I no longer had to stutter over concepts like lesbian loneliness or my frustration with misogynistic straight men.
They all just got it.
Without this community, I am not sure if I could be as warm and confident in myself as I am today.
And while I still experience homophobia, like being spat on while walking with an ex in downtown Toronto or having a stranger yell in my face “Are you fucking lesbians?” in Kensington Market, the joy and love still outweighs the nasty.
So, as the sentimental dyke that I have become, I decided to ask a set of lesbians in my orbit — including my friends as well as Uncloseted staffers, board members and followers — if they would share a little bit about what makes them love being a lesbian. And now, I can share it with all of you. Here they are. Happy LVW!
Timi Sotire
Falling in love with her was a reset. I felt like a kid again, hopeful about the future. We’ve had to overcome many obstacles to be together, but I’d choose her in every lifetime. I was sick with a long-term health condition when we met, and hanging out with Sophia really helped me with my recovery after my surgery.
Bella Sayegh
Being a lesbian is one of the most beautiful things in the world. To be authentically yourself in resistance and joy is so special within the lesbian community.
Parker Wales
When I met Liv, I finally understood why almost every song is about love.
Gillian Kilgour
There is no connection quite as perfect as between lesbians, no one sees me like my lesbians do.
Chyna Price
There’s many things I love about being a lesbian. But here are my top three:
- There’s just a deeper understanding when it comes to being loved by another woman.
- The next one would be the sense of community, especially being a POC masculine-presenting lesbian. I don’t feel like I’m cosplaying as someone else like I felt like I was doing before I came out.
- There’s so much history going back to the 1800s on how we found and fought for our love. That fight makes me proud because it shows me … that we’ve [found] ways to express our love even when it was misunderstood, illegal and deemed as madness.
Hope Pisoni
Before I knew I was a lesbian, romantic relationships seemed suffocating — it felt like everyone would expect me to act my part in the meticulous performance that is heterosexuality. But meeting my spouse and discovering our identities together showed me just how freeing it could be to love without a script to follow.
Leital Molad
It was the joy of watching the New York Sirens defeat the Toronto Sceptres at our first professional women’s hockey game — surrounded by hundreds (maybe thousands?) of cheering lesbians.
Angela Earl
I spent years building a life that looked right. But I never felt settled, and eventually I started asking what would actually make me happy. Coming out was about more than who I love, it was letting go of everything I was told to be. The last few years have felt like coming home to a life that had been waiting for me.
Tali Bray
What I love about being a lesbian is what I love about being in love … the wonder and joy of “oh, this is what it’s supposed to feel like.” I love moving through the world with women.
Izzy Stokes
I didn’t fall in love until I realized that queerness was an option. My queer friends have helped me see so much more than I grew up seeing. I’m so proud of us, and I’m so grateful for my lesbian community.
Nandika Chatterjee
When I met my fiancée is when I started to feel most like myself. That meant loving myself for who I am and embracing my identity as a lesbian. I felt free in a way I have never before. That’s the long and short of it.
Liz Lucking
The love and joy of being a lesbian is getting to live the life I dreamed of but never thought I would get to have!
Reflections
As I read these beautiful entries, it’s not lost on me that we’re still living in a world where lesbians are more likely to struggle with maternity problems, fetishization, and compulsory heterosexuality — not to mention the intersectional pressures of racism from both inside and outside the queer community. That’s part of why, according to a 2024 survey, 22 percent of LGBTQ women have attempted suicide, and 66 percent have sought treatment for trauma.
So if you are a lesbian who isn’t out or doesn’t feel safe, I hope you read this and can glean some hope from these messages. So when you look in the mirror, you know that it’s okay to release the weight — which can feel so heavy — of a heteronormative world.
We still have a long fight until all lesbians can feel safe to be themselves, but this is a community that does not back away from the tough, from the joy, from being loud and from all the other things that it takes to start a small revolution.
Hell yeah, lesbians! Here’s to you.
*I am signing off with my cat on my lap and a pride flag over my head <3.
Cuba
Trans parent charged with kidnapping, allegedly fled to Cuba with child
Cuban authorities helped locate Rose Inessa-Ethington
Federal authorities have charged a transgender woman with kidnapping after she allegedly fled to Cuba with her 10-year-old child.
An affidavit that Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Jennifer Waterfield filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Utah on April 16 notes the child is a “biological male who identifies as a female” and “splits time living with divorced parents who share custody” in Cache County, Utah.
Waterfield notes the child on March 28 “was supposed to be traveling by car to” Calgary, Alberta, “for a planned camping trip with his transgender mother, Rose Inessa-Ethington, Rose’s partner, Blue Inessa-Ethington, and Blue’s 3-year-old child.”
The affidavit notes the group instead flew from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Mexico City on March 29. Waterfield writes the Inessa-Ethingtons and the two children then flew from Mérida, Mexico, to Havana on April 1.
The 10-year-old child called her biological mother on March 28 after they arrived in Canada. The custody agreement, according to the affidavit, required Rose Inessa-Ethington to return the child to her former spouse on April 3.
“Interviews of MV [Minor Victim] 1’s family members provided significant concerns for MV 1’s well-being, as MV 1 was born a male, however, identifies as a female child, which is largely believed to be due to manipulation by Rose Inessa-Ethington,” reads the affidavit. “Concerns exist that MV 1 was transported to Cuba for gender reassignment surgery prior to puberty.”
The affidavit indicates authorities found a note in the Inessa-Ethingtons’ home with “instruction from a mental health therapist located in Washington, D.C., including instruction to send the therapist the $10,000.00 and instructions on gender-affirming medical care for children.”
The affidavit does not identify the specific “mental health therapist” in D.C.
A Utah judge on April 13 ordered Rose Inessa-Ethington to “immediately” return the child to her former spouse. The former spouse also received sole custody.
“Your affiant believes that due to the extensive planning and preparation exhibited by both Rose Inessa-Ethington and Blue Inessa-Ethington to isolate MV 1 and take MV 1 to Havana, Cuba, without notifying or requesting permission from MV 1’s mother indicates they are likely not planning to return to the United States,” wrote Waterfield.
The affidavit notes Cuban authorities found the Inessa-Ethingtons and the child.
A press release the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Utah issued notes the Inessa-Ethingtons “were deported from Cuba” on Monday “with the assistance of the FBI.”
The couple has been charged with International Parental Kidnapping. The Inessa-Ethingtons were arraigned in Richmond, Va., on Monday. The press release notes a federal court in Salt Lake City will soon handle the case.
The New York Times reported the child is now back with their biological mother.
“We are grateful to law enforcement for working swiftly to return the child to the biological mother,” said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Holyoak of the District of Utah in the press release.
The case is unfolding against the backdrop of increased tensions between Washington and Havana after U.S. forces on Jan. 3 seized now former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
President Donald Trump shortly after he took office in January 2025 issued an executive order that directed the federal government to only recognize two genders: male and female. A second White House directive banned federally-funded gender-affirming care for anyone under 19.
The U.S. Supreme Court last year in the Skrmetti decision upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming care for minors.
Cuba’s national health care system has offered free sex-reassignment surgeries since 2008.
Activists who are critical of Mariela Castro, the daughter of former President Raúl Castro who spearheads LGBTQ issues as director of Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education, have previously told the Washington Blade that access to these procedures is limited. The Blade on Wednesday asked a contact in Havana to clarify whether Cuban law currently allows minors to undergo sex-reassignment surgery.
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