LGBTQI History: A Sonoma County Timeline 1947-2000.
Wednesdays 1:30-3pm. Online via Zoom. On Wed, Jan 26
we will be talking with Jim Longacre about Freestone
House & Gardens. Look forward to seeing you there!
Please contact me to enroll in this FREE class and
receive a Zoom invite: cdungan@santarosa.edu
A bomb threat was phoned in Wednesday afternoon to the Wilshire Boulevard Koreatown offices of the TransLatin@ Coalition, Bamby Salcedo, the president and CEO of the non-profit organization told the Los Angeles Blade.
According to Salcedo, an unidentified male caller told the staff person who answered at approximately 3 p.m., while delivering the threat said; “You’re all going to die.” The staff immediately evacuated everyone from their offices and then contacted the Los Angeles Police Department for assistance.
Officers, specialists and detectives from the Rampart Division of the LAPD responded and swept the building. A spokesperson for the LAPD confirmed that the incident is under active investigation but would make no further comment.
On a Facebook post immediately after the incident the non-profit wrote; “To ensure the safety of our clients and staff members, we ask that you please NOT come to our office.”
In a follow-up post, Salcedo notified the organization and its clientele that the LAPD had given the all-clear and that their offices would resume normal operations Thursday at 9:00 a.m. PT.
“Thank you for your messages and concern for our staff and community,” Salcedo said.
“No amount of threats can stop us from our commitment to the TGI community,” she added.
The TransLatin@ Coalition was founded in 2009 by a group of transgender and gender non-conforming and intersex (TGI) immigrant women in Los Angeles as a grassroots response to address the specific needs of TGI Latino immigrants who live in the U.S.
Since then, the agency has become a nationally recognized organization with representation in 10 different states across the U.S. and provides direct services to TGI individuals in Los Angeles.
In 2015, the TransLatin@ Coalition identified the urgent need to provide direct services to empower TGI people in response to structural, institutional, and interpersonal violence, and the Center for Violence Prevention and Transgender Wellness was born.
Since then, the organization has secured funding from the state and local government sources as well as several private foundations and organizations to provide direct services to all TGI individuals in Los Angeles County.
The TransLatin@ Coalition’s primary focus is to change the landscape of access to services for TGI people and provide access to comprehensive resource and services that will improve the quality of life of TGI people.
As we mark one year into the Biden administration, Lambda Legal reviews the progress made (or not) on ten asks from a year ago to rectify the harms done by the Trump administration and to address the ongoing inequities experienced by LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV.
The Trump administration damaged the integrity of our federal judiciary by packing it with right-wing extremists who oppose LGBTQ+ rights, reproductive rights, and civil rights more broadly. We called on the Biden administration to make the restoration of fairness and impartiality to the courts one of its highest priorities.
What the administration accomplished
What more we need
With the new majority on the Supreme Court created by Trump and increasingly hostile lower court appointments, we have every reason to believe our opponents will seek to undermine marriage equality for same-sex couples. Now more than ever, we need a robust ally in the White House who will vigorously defend and fully implement marriage equality, including things like the right of LGBTQ+ widows and widowers to access Social Security survivor’s benefits. The Biden administration must ensure that marriages between same-sex couples are respected and that LGBTQ+ families are treated like all other families.
What the administration accomplished
What more we need
At every turn, the Trump administration granted licenses to discriminate to health care providers, social service agencies, and private businesses, but we know that religious freedom does not include the freedom to harm people because of those beliefs. The Biden administration must reassert protections for LGBTQ+ people when we are at our most vulnerable; in hospitals, homeless shelters, nursing homes, and foster care, and end the effort to grant a “license to discriminate” in the name of religion.
What the administration accomplished
What more we need
The Trump administration called efforts to train medical and other personnel on the pernicious effects of systemic racism “un-American” and issued an executive order banning the use of federal funds for such training. The Biden administration must reverse and repudiate this order and the many other racist directives and policies of outgoing President Trump, such as the Muslim travel ban and other attacks on Black and brown communities.
What the administration accomplished
What more we need
As commander-in-chief of the military, one of the world’s largest employers, President Biden must end the ban on open service by transgender people and ensure that Pentagon leadership understands that our patriotic transgender service members have a right to serve their country openly, as who they are, and free from discrimination.
What the administration accomplished
What more we need
School is tough enough without bullying from the federal government. The Biden administration must get the Department of Education back in the business of protecting the educational opportunities of all students, and in particular, should end its relentless assault on the ability of transgender students to be their authentic selves and to have equal opportunity.
What the administration accomplished
What more we need
Every American needs access to affordable, quality health care. And the COVID-19 global pandemic has exposed how barriers to health care can put vulnerable communities at great risk. The Trump administration was relentless in its efforts to undermine the Affordable Care Act and to restrict the ability of many—including LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV—to access care, regardless of who they are. The Biden administration’s Department of Justice should stop trying to undermine health care in our courts, and its Department of Health and Human Services should be fighting for quality health care, free from discrimination or harassment.
What the administration accomplished
What more we need
The Trump administration showed total disregard for family ties when it did not approve of the families involved—such as immigrant families and those headed by LGBTQ+ people—and used the power of the government to separate and undermine such families. The Biden administration must respect—not target and persecute—all families by immediately reuniting families separated at the border, by creating a pathway to citizenship that allows families to stay together, and by ensuring that LGBTQ+ families are treated the same in the eyes of the law as all others.
What the administration accomplished
What more we need
President Biden must direct the Pentagon to end its discrimination against our patriotic service members living with HIV and ensure that our military’s policies are informed by science and not outdated and stigmatizing views about who can serve our country safely, with honor and distinction.
What the administration accomplished
What more we need
LGBTQ+ people from around the world come to the United States, sometimes literally running for their lives. But the Trump administration tarnished our reputation as a safe harbor by making it virtually impossible for people to seek refuge in the United States and enacted historically low ceilings on the number of refugees that can be admitted. The Biden administration must reestablish asylum rules to ensure those seeking safety from persecution because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or HIV status can find refuge in the United States.
What the administration accomplished
What more we need
YEAR TWO: A new year brings new concerns and goals. Therefore, in addition to the above, Lambda Legal calls upon the Biden administration to prioritize these five critical issues in Year Two.
Voter suppression tactics used in hostile states silence the most vulnerable members of the LGBTQ+ community, minimizing our political power and ability to inform conversations around policies that directly affect us. President Biden must convince Congress to pass the For the People Act, the John Lewis Voting Rights Restoration Act, and the Washington, D.C. Admission Act to ensure the integrity of our democracy, restore the efficacy of the Voting Rights Act, and enfranchise D.C. citizens, ten percent (10%) of whom identify as LGBTQ+.
Hate crimes continue to rise and each subsequent year is the deadliest year on record for transgender people. The vast majority of transgender victims are Black and brown transgender women. To help ensure their safety, the Biden administration needs to champion legislation that works to decriminalize sex work; push Congress to repeal SESTA and FOSTA; invest in research showing the harms inflicted on transgender women of color as a result of criminalizing sex work; appoint Department of Justice leadership who will investigate the epidemic of violence against Black trans people and take guidance and direction from local and state LGBTQ+ anti-violence groups on how to begin to address the epidemic; and implement the Khalid Jabara and Heather Heyer NO HATE Act, which was included in the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, by adopting a community-based approach that is inclusive of LGBTQ+ communities.
Being in federal custody does not mean one loses all of one’s rights. The Biden administration must reverse the Trump administration’s changes to the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Policy Manual regarding the housing of incarcerated trans people. Furthermore, it should establish policies and procedures ensuring that incarcerated trans people have access to gender-affirming health care, including surgical care, and establish policies and procedures that address names and pronouns, search protocols, and housing determinations. And finally, the administration must ensure that the constitutional and statutory rights of LGBTQ+ people in federal custody are protected in re-entry programs.
Systemic inequities in our society disproportionately impact LGBTQ+ people and people living with HIV in a myriad of ways, but the government does not have enough data on sexual orientation, gender identity, HIV status, and the intersection of other identities to adequately understand and address these inequities. The administration must collect additional data, provide analysis, and release to the public findings on HIV-related disparities in stigma, discrimination, new infections, knowledge of status, and more among marginalized segments of our society. Additionally, the administration should initiate new rulemaking to reinstate the national collection of data on tribal and LGBTQ+ foster youth and foster and adoptive parents and guardians; reinstate the collection of information about trans older adults in the National Survey of Older Americans; and develop best practices and technical assistance for schools for collecting sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression-related demographic information of youth in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, and of youth experiencing homelessness or school arrests, and prioritize the safety and well-being of these youth, especially LGBTQ+ youth of color, in the data collection process.
Although we welcomed the FDA’s change in 2020 from a 12-month to a 3-month deferral for blood donations from men who have sex with men as a step in the right direction, the FDA can and should implement a policy that is based on a person’s actual risk behaviors instead of their sexual orientation or gender identity. For years, Lambda Legal has urged the FDA to adopt an approach that looks to actual risk factors based on a person’s sexual activity and safer sex practices rather than blanket approaches that disqualify gay men along with many trans people and others in our community who would welcome the opportunity to donate in light of our nation’s blood shortage.
Click here to download the full PDF of this report.
For over ten years, the GLBT Historical Society Museum has been a showcase for LGBTQ history, art and culture. Among our most beloved initiatives has been our Community Curator Program. This program invites members of the public, historians and curators to develop exhibitions under the guidance of GLBT Historical Society curatorial staff. As the society’s director of exhibitions and museum experience, I’m pleased to announce that after temporarily suspending the program in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have now launched a new format for our Community Curator Program!
Varied Approaches
Interest in community-curation models has grown dramatically in the museum and curatorial world over the past decade. Since we first swung open the doors to the GLBT Historical Society Museum in the Castro in 2011, about half of our temporary exhibitions have been conceived and curated by members of the public. Community curation has enabled us to mount unique exhibitions that reflect a wider variety of interests, approaches and topics than would otherwise have been possible.
In 2016, for instance, Julián Delgado Lopera and Ángel Rafael Vázquez-Concepción curated an exhibition exploring the concept of ambiente(“environment”) in the LGBTQ Latinx community. In 2017, artist and professor E.G. Crichton invited LGBTQ artists to create new artworks inspired by past issues of OUT/LOOK, a historic periodical of the late 1980s and early 1990s held in the society’s archives. And in 2019 Melissa Hawkins’s thirty-year-old photographs depicting bars and parties in the SoMa neighborhood formed the core of an exhibition about culture and resilience in the nightlife world during the worst years of the AIDS crisis.
A More Structured Process
While we temporarily paused new in-person exhibition proposals in 2020 and 2021, the break provided an opportunity for us to evaluate the program, identifying both strengths and areas for improvement. We have now updated and relaunched the program, providing a more structured application process, a revised set of timelines, clearer expectations and better support. These changes are designed to assist prospective curators in crafting strong proposals and further developing their professional skills in the process.
In line with the society’s Five Year Strategic Plan, adopted in 2021, we are especially looking forward to receiving exhibition proposals that focus on people with disabilities; people and communities of color; Native American/Indigenous people and communities; lesbians and women; and bisexual, transgender and gender-nonconforming or nonbinary people and communities. To support this goal, the new exhibition application form will be available year round. We welcome and will consider all proposals that demonstrate alignment with our mission.
Since 1985, the GLBT Historical Society has been a labor of love rooted in the LGBTQ community, and our museum has likewise sought to embody the society’s community-centered roots. This is your museum. We hope you’ll participate in the curatorial process.
To learn more about the Community Curator Program,please visit our new webpage, where you will find extensive information. The application form is available on that page and will be accepting proposals from January 10. And finally, I’m always available to answer your questions!
Sex workers and strippers explained how the pandemic has forced them into unsafe working conditions and hit them financially.
United Sex Workers is a trade union branch organising for better working conditions and to change the sex work industry from within. Among its aims is to establish ‘worker’ status for strippers and sex workers, which bestows basic employment rights such as sick pay and annual leave.
Its work has become even more important during the pandemic, which has seen strip clubs fall quiet and close down, and has seen sex workers often forced to gamble with their safety in order to make a living.
While some people have been able to work remotely during the pandemic, many people’s livelihoods depend on in-person contact.
To make matters worse, sex workers are classed as self-employed, meaning they can’t access sick pay or other benefits. The result is that many sex workers are left struggling to make ends meet if they test positive for COVID-19.
That puts sex workers in a uniquely difficult position – how do you stay afloat when you have no guaranteed income and no safety net to fall back on?
We spoke to members of United Sex Workers to find out what it’s been like to work in the sex industry since the arrival of the Omicron variant. They spoke about financial instability, the fear that comes with being exposed to COVID-19, and working with riskier clients in a bid to make ends meet.
Surnames have been withheld to protect identities.
December is always a slow month, yet the Omicron wave reduced it to a glacial pace. When I tested positive for COVID over Christmas it meant I had to take 10 full days off work, which only increased the anxiety I felt about not being able to make rent. When you’re self-employed, 10 days of work can mean the difference between paying bills or subsisting on super noodles. I had to take on potentially dangerous clients I would have usually refused to see just to make ends meet, alongside juggling the health anxiety of being so close to strangers in the middle of a global pandemic.
Being a hooker, I was unable to access any financial support from the government earlier in the year, and any savings I had at the start of the pandemic are now long gone, so all I can do is continue to see clients and hope I don’t fall ill again. The longer the pandemic stretches on, the more terrified I am of never being able to financially recover. I often wonder if this perpetual anxiety is how it would feel if sex work were criminalised; having to take riskier bookings due to there being less clients, knowing that with each booking I’m gambling with my own safety.
My work phone was quieter than usual and I needed to take any booking I could. This meant that I screened less than usual and men tried to push my boundaries a bit more I think because they knew I was desperate for the money.
This is what it might be like if we have the Nordic model, the nicer clients will behave and not come out and the bad clients will still be there and they will know that we need the money and push us.
Omicron has hit the stripping industry really hard. November and December is usually the best time of the year for dancers, but this year it has been very quiet. We saw a massive decline in the number of customers visiting our clubs, as Christmas parties and stag dos were often cancelled. This, combined with the arrival of COVID passports has made it incredibly hard for strippers to make a decent amount of money. A lot of us also tested positive for COVID and have had to self-isolate and miss out on work. Due to being self-employed, we had no access to sick pay.
The last two years have been incredibly hard for the industry. A number of clubs did not get any financial support as a result of their local authority discriminating against them simply because of the nature of those establishments. This has led to the closure of some clubs which did not manage to make it through the pandemic. Some of them tried to recoup their financial losses through higher house fees, fines given to the workers for very arbitrary reasons, and booking more dancers than they usually would, making it harder for everyone to make money.
Many strippers are queer, and a significant proportion of the customer base also is.
Some cities such as Bristol, Edinburgh and Blackpool have used those difficult times to try and introduce nil-caps, essentially a ban, on strip clubs. Blackpool has unfortunately been successful, although the process they went through to achieve this was more than questionable. No decision has been made in Bristol and Edinburgh so far. Those decisions from local authorities have received a massive backlash from the industry itself, with us dancers in Bristol organising ourselves with the Bristol Sex Workers Collective and advocating against the ban, arguing it would push the industry underground and make us unsafe. We have been supported by our trade union United Sex Workers, which is also campaigning against nil-caps.
These caps would not only endanger the dancers, who would lose safe and regulated workplaces, but it would also be a huge loss for the LGBTQ+ community. Many strippers are queer, and a significant proportion of the customer base also is. Closing them down would once again be removing safe spaces for the community, due to the high security presence in those venues and the very strict licensing.
I tested positive for COVID along with many others in the week leading up to Christmas. This meant that I had to isolate and therefore couldn’t work. It was very stressful to be sat at home with no income worrying that if there was another lockdown I could be facing even more losses and that I could struggle to pay my rent and bills. There’s no furlough pay and no sick pay if you’re a sex worker. I just wish that we had access to these basic rights so that we can feel protected and supported along with other workers.
At the start of COVID, I managed to take a few months off sex work because I had a few days work each week in a civvie job. When money got tight I started seeing clients again and, perhaps due to their mental health being bad, and mine too, the sessions were so difficult, with clients pushing boundaries or being more emotionally intense than usual and less respectful of boundaries.
Touch also felt strange after so long avoiding human contact. I was missing the people I wanted to be close to so much, so the touch from those I didn’t love felt stifling. I also think, as sex work is so stigmatised and I have internalised some of that, I was worried about spreading COVID that I’d picked up via clients, as if this somehow was worse than if I’d picked it up working in an office.
You can join the United Sex Workers trade union or find out more about the work they do here.
Chris Dickerson, who holds the duel honour of being the first Black man to win the Mr America contest and first openly gay man to win Mr Olympia, has died aged 82.
Dickerson was a powerhouse of the bodybuilding community and broke barriers. He died on 23 December at a hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with his friend Bill Neylon confirming the cause of death as a heart ailment, the Washington Post reported.
Neylon – a retired amateur bodybuilder who trained alongside Dickerson – said his friend had lived in a rehab centre after he had been hospitalised for a broken hip in 2020, had a heart attack and COVID-19.
He told the New York Times that Dickerson “brought class and dignity and culture to bodybuilding”.
Chris Dickerson’s storied career spanned over three decades, and he won over 50 titles. He ended his career having won four major bodybuilding titles: Mr Olympia, Mr America, Mr Universe and the Pro Mr America.
Dickerson trained in opera and dance before beginning to lift weights to build up his chest and expand his vocal range.
He was named Mr America in 1970, becoming the first Black winner of the bodybuilding competition. He was also one of the first Black men to win the Mr Universe competition in 1982.
Dickerson was also gay, which was widely known in bodybuilding circles by the late 1970s. But he didn’t publicly discuss his sexuality at the height of his career, the New York Times reported.
Dickerson acknowledged that being gay and Black was a barrier for him in the bodybuilding world.
In a 2009 paper published in Iron Game History: The Journal of Physical Culture, Chriis Dickerson recalled facing homophobic and racist prejudice at the Mr Olympia competition in 1980.
Dickerson narrowly lost the top title to Arnold Schwarzenegger.
He said the promoter of the Mr Olympia contest was a “real low life, a bigot, who had a real dislike for me – partly on racial grounds and partly for my sexual orientation”.
The paper alleged the promoter also told another official that “Chris couldn’t win because he was a f*g”.
Chris Dickerson came in second again in 1981 before finally taking the Mr Olympia title in 1982 aged 43. He was the oldest Mr Olympia champion at the time.
In the 1970s, Dickerson modelled nude for Jim French, a photographer who specialised in erotic imagery of gay men. He also posed in a t-shirt for a portrait by Robert Mapplethorpe in 1982.
Samir Bannout, Dickerson’s friend and the 1983 Mr Olympia champion, told the Washington Post that Dickerson was “one of the nicest people in the entire sport”.
“He had no chip on his shoulder,” Bannout said. “When he won the Mr Olympia, he was still a normal guy.”
Bannout described the gay bodybuilder as “masterful” and as someone who had “more confidence than anyone out there”.
Chris Dickerson was the youngest of triplets. His brothers died before him, the New York Times reported.
Dickerson left no immediate survivors.
Dr. Phil is in the hot seat following an episode of his talk show featuring conservative blogger and podcaster/anti-trans activist Matt Walsh.
The episode aired on January 19 and featured Walsh, a self-described “fascist,” debating a non-binary couple. Over the course of the conversation, the couple, identified as “Ethan” and “Addison”, argued with Walsh about what constitutes a woman as he accused them of “appropriating womanhood.”
“This is one of the problems with left-wing gender ideology,” Walsh ranted. “No one who espouses it can even tell you what these words mean. What is a woman?”
Later in the exchange, words got especially heated when Addison asked Walsh, “I’m trying to understand. You definition of a woman is someone who is female, is what you said, right?”
“Correct,” Walsh answered. “A biological female.”
“So what happens when you have maybe someone who is female, a cisgender woman, as you just explained, that doesn’t have the ability to reproduce? Maybe she doesn’t have those organs–”
“I have answered the question,” Walsh snapped. “You sit up here and said ‘trans women are women.’ You tell me. What is a woman?”
Related: Dr. Oz’s Senate campaign is an even bigger trainwreck than we were expecting
Addison replied, “Womanhood is something that, as Ethan explained, I cannot define because I, myself…”
“But you use the word!” Walsh interrupted. “What did you mean when you said ‘trans women are women’ when you don’t know what that means?”
“I do not define what a woman is because I do not identify as a woman,” Addison explained. “Womanhood is an umbrella term that describes people who identify as a woman. Each person has their own relationship with their gender identity.”
At that point, the audience burst into applause.
Related: Dr. Oz won’t stop bitching about cancel culture and everyone on Twitter is like “Girl, byeeeee!”
Of course, to anyone who knows him, it should come as no surprise that Walsh came ready to spew transphobic vitriol. He has a long history of transphobia, having authored the children’s book Johnny the Walrus, which compares being transgender to pretending to be a walrus.
He also has a history of homophobia, having called Pride month a “celebration of vanity” and denounced adoption by same-sex couples. He has also defended the vigilante actions of Kyle Rittenhouse, opposes abortion, and claims that doing yoga is anti-Christian, among other things.
Saturday January 22 @ 7:30 pm. Stephane Wrembel Band. Occidental Center for the Arts is proud to presentthe world renowned French composer (theme song for ‘Midnight in Paris’) and dazzling Gypsy jazz guitarist Stephane Wrembel ! Wrembel brings his superb band, unique multi-faceted style and his dazzling Django-inspired guitar techniques to OCA for the third time. Wrembel’s stellar band includes long-time collaborators Thor Jensen (guitar), Ari Folman Cohen (bass),and Nick Anderson (drums). Don’t miss one of the finest guitar players in the world with his band on our stage! $30 General/$25 OCA Members. www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org. Masks are required. Fine refreshments available, Art Gallery open. OCA is accessible to people with disabilities. Become an OCA Member and get discounts/free admission. OCA is a non profit performing and fine arts center located at 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. Occidental, CA. 95465.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports:
The Castro Theatre, a San Francisco jewel that has hosted countless film festivals and premieres, is set to get a major makeover. The 100-year-old theater, known throughout the world as one of the symbols of San Francisco’s historic LGBTQ Castro neighborhood, will be renewed as a live events venue with music, comedy, film and more as Another Planet Entertainment takes over its programming.
The Castro will still screen select films, but the changes are sure to be earthshaking for many Bay Area film organizations and movie fans who have been filling the Castro for decades. “It’s heartbreaking, devastating, and not surprising,” said Marc Huestis, who has presented special events at the Castro Theatre for 40 years. “Even before COVID, it was like repertory (cinema) was kind of on its last legs,” Huestis continued.
Read the full article.
Another queer Team USA athlete has just qualified for the Winter Olympics – skeleton slider Andrew Blaser.
Blaser beat out skeleton veterans Austin Florian and John Daly to become the only man on the Team USA skeleton team for the 2022 games in Beijing.
It’s the first time that the US is sending only one male skeleton athlete to the Olympics – so no pressure at all.
The truly terrifying winter sport involves sledders plummeting head-first down a steep and perilous icy track on a tiny sled. According to the Olympics website, it is considered to be the “world’s first sliding sport”.
He joins other queer Team USA Olympians including figure skaters Jason Brown, Amber Glenn and Timothy LeDuc – who’ll be the first openly non-binary athlete to compete in the Winter Olympics.
Other LGBT+ athletes heading for the Winter Olympics, according to OutSports, also include British curler Bruce Mouat, Australian snowboarder Belle Brockhoff, French figure skater Kevin Aymoz and Dutch speedskater Ireen Wüst – the most decorated Olympic speedskater ever.
The LGBT+ sports website says that the Beijing Games will include more out athletes than any before it.
Also heading for Beijing are ice dancers Guillaume Cizeron (France) and Paul Poirier (Canada), and Canadian figure skater Eric Radford.
Only 15 openly LGBT+ athletes competed at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
Skeleton returned to the Winter Olympics in 2022, having last appeared on the program 54 years prior in 1948. Blaser is the first out gay man to represent Team USA in the sport.
He previously told OutSports that there have been several times where he considered walking away from the sport.
But looking back at all his accomplishments in skeleton, he realised he could succeed.
“I have had so many moments where I have ‘quit’ mentally and thought I was done and walking away,” Blaser said. “Looking back at every conversation with every coach where I was defeated or thought it couldn’t be done, now I know that it can be done.”
Blaser started as a track and field athlete, even competing at the University of Idaho as a pole vaulter and hurdler.
After college, Blaser wanted to pursue a career as a bobsledder but tried skeleton after coaches said he’d be better suited to the super face ice sport. But Blaser initially hated the sport and quit before eventually returning to go pro.
When he’s not training, Andrew Blaser enjoys travelling, camping and singing. His favourite movies include Love Actually and Mean Girls, according to his Team USA profile.
