Sports

/ /

Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov boycotts Pride Night event

Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Ivan Provorov refused to participate in pregame warmups Tuesday, ahead of his team’s Pride Night celebration, citing religious objections.

The Flyers donned Pride-themed jerseys and used sticks wrapped in rainbow Pride tape as they warmed up for their game against the Anaheim Ducks.

Provorov said his Russian Orthodox faith precluded him from taking part in the LGBTQ event. 

“I respect everybody. I respect everybody’s choices. My choice is to stay true to myself and my religion. That’s all I’m going to say,” Provorov told reporters after the game.

The NHL pro then snapped at a reporter who asked if his refusal to warm up had any impact on the game.

“Did you not hear what I just said? Can you respect that?” Provorov testily responded.

While Flyers coach John Tortorella called the hockey team’s Pride Night event “a great night,” he also defended Provorov’s refusal to participate.

Recommended

OUT POP CULTURE‘Bros,’ ‘White Lotus,’ ‘World of Warcraft’: GLAAD Media Award nominees unveiled

OUT POLITICS AND POLICYNorth Dakota weighs ban of ‘sexually explicit’ library books 

“With Provy, he’s being true to himself and to his religion,”  Tortorella said, using Provorov’s nickname. “This has to do with his beliefs and his religion. It’s the one thing I respect about Provy. He’s true to himself.” 

There was no consideration to benching Provorov over the pregame boycott, Tortorella said. Provorov skated a team-high 22 minutes and 45 seconds in Tuesday night’s game. 

“The Philadelphia Flyers organization is committed to inclusivity and is proud to support the LGBTQ+ community,” the team said in a statement after the game. “Many of our players are active in their support of local LGBTQ+ organizations, and we were proud to host our annual Pride Night again this year. The Flyers will continue to be strong advocates for inclusivity and the LGBTQ+ community.”

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, a longtime ally of of Russian President Vladimir Putin who backs the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, said last year that Russia must resist liberal foreignerswho support “gay parades.”

/ /

Federal judge upholds W.Va. law that bans trans youth from female school sports teams

U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Goodwin for the Southern District of West Virginia ruled last Friday that the ban on transgender athletes competing in female school sports that Republican Gov. Jim Justice signed into law in 2021 is constitutional.

“I recognize that being transgender is natural and is not a choice,” Goodwin wrote in his decision. “But one’s sex is also natural, and it dictates physical characteristics that are relevant to athletics.”

The ruling came in the lawsuit challenging the ban filed by Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of West Virginia and Cooley LLP on behalf of then 11-year-old Becky Pepper-Jackson, the plaintiff in the lawsuit.

When the suit was filed, Josh Block, senior staff attorney with the ACLU LGBTQ and HIV Project said: “Becky — like all students — should have the opportunity to try out for a sports team and play with her peers. We hope this also sends a message to other states to stop demonizing trans kids to score political points and to let these kids live their lives in peace.” 

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey applauded the decision.

“This is not only about simple biology, but fairness for women’s sports, plain and simple,” the attorney general said. “Opportunities for girls and women on the field are precious and we must safeguard that future.”

NPR and the Associated Press reported the plaintiff’s lawsuit did not challenge whether schools should be allowed to have separate sports teams for males and females, and Goodwin was tasked with determining whether the Legislature’s definition of the terms “girl” and “woman” is constitutionally permissible. The Save Women’s Sports Bill signed by Justice says they mean anyone assigned the female gender at birth.

“The Legislature’s definition of ‘girl’ as being based on ‘biological sex’ is substantially related to the important government interest of providing equal athletic opportunities for females,” Goodwin determined.

The judge also rejected the plaintiff’s claim that the state law violated Title IX, the landmark gender equity legislation enacted in 1972.

/ /

Tennis star Martina Navratilova is diagnosed with throat and breast cancer

Tennis great Martina Navratilova said Monday that she has been diagnosed with throat and breast cancer.

The 18-time Grand Slam singles champion and member of the International Tennis Hall of Fame will start treatment this month and her prognosis is good, her representative said in a statement.

“This double whammy is serious but still fixable, and I’m hoping for a favorable outcome,” the 66-year-old Navratilova said. “It’s going to stink for a while but I’ll fight with all have I got.”

She said she noticed an enlarged lymph node in her neck while attending the season-ending WTA Finals in Fort Worth, Texas, in November, and a biopsy showed early stage throat cancer. While Navratilova was undergoing tests on her throat, she said, the unrelated breast cancer was discovered.

Navratilova was diagnosed with a noninvasive form of breast cancer in 2010 and had a lumpectomy.

She won 59 Grand Slam titles overall, including 31 in women’s doubles and 10 in mixed doubles. The last was a mixed doubles championship with Bob Bryan at the 2006 U.S. Open, a month shy of her 50th birthday.

Navratilova originally retired in 1994, after a record 167 singles titles and 331 weeks at No. 1 in the WTA rankings. She returned to the tour to play doubles in 2000 and occasionally competed in singles, too.

Navratilova was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2000. She has worked as a TV analyst in recent years.

The statement issued Monday said Navratilova would not be a regular part of Tennis Channel’s coverage of the Australian Open later this month “but hopes to be able to join in from time to time” via video conference.

Navratilova is married to “Real Housewives of Miami” star and former Russian model Julia Lemigova, 50. The duo became the first lesbian couple featured on the Bravo franchise’s 11 incarnations when Lemigova joined the cast in 2021. (Bravo is owned by NBCUniversal, the parent company of NBC News.) 

/ /

Kathy Whitworth, winningest golfer in history, dies at 83

Kathy Whitworth set a benchmark in golf no one has ever touched, whether it was Sam Snead or Tiger Woods, Mickey Wright or Annika Sorenstam. Her 88 victories are the most by any player on a single professional tour.

Whitworth, whose LPGA Tour victories spanned nearly a quarter-century and who became the first woman to earn $1 million for her career on the LPGA, died on Christmas Eve, her longtime partner said. She was 83.

Her partner, Bettye Odle, did not disclose a cause of death, saying only that Whitworth died suddenly Saturday night while celebrating with family and friends.

“Kathy left this world the way she lived her life — loving, laughing and creating memories,” Odle said in a statement released by the LPGA Tour.

Whitworth won the first of her 88 titles in the Kelly Girls Opens in July 1962. She won six majors during her career and broke Mickey Wright’s record of 82 career wins when Whitworth captured the Lady Michelob in the summer of 1982.

Her final victory came in 1985 at the United Virginia Bank Classic.

“Winning never got old,” Whitworth once said.

All that was missing from her career was the U.S. Women’s Open, the biggest of the women’s majors. Upon being the first woman to surpass $1 million in career earnings in 1981, she said, “I would have swapped being the first to make a million for winning the Open, but it was a consolation which took some of the sting out of not winning.”

Sorenstam referred to her on Twitter as the LPGA’s all-time victory leader and a “total class act” who will be dearly missed.

“Thanks for setting the bar so high, Kathy,” she wrote.

Whitworth was the AP Female Athlete of the Year in 1965 and in 1967, when she easily beat out Wimbledon singles champion Billie Jean King. Whitworth was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1982.

She was the LPGA player of the year seven times in an eight-year span (1966 through 1973). She won the Vare Trophy for the lowest scoring average seven times and she was the leading money winner in eight seasons.

But she was identified by one number — 88.

Snead was credited with a record 82 wins on the PGA Tour, a total Woods has since matched. Wright won 82 times on the LPGA Tour, while Sorenstam had 72 wins when she retired after the 2006 season at age 36.

“I think Mickey had the best swing, and was probably the greatest golfer,” Betsy Rawls once told Golf Digest. “But Kathy was the best player of the game that I have ever seen.”

Whitworth was born in Monahans, a small West Texas town, and learned to play golf in New Mexico. She started at age 15 in Jal, New Mexico, on the nine-hole course built for the El Paso Natural Gas employees.

She soon was a two-time winner of the New Mexico State Amateur. After briefly attending Odessa (Texas) College, she turned pro at age 19 and joined the LPGA Tour in December 1958.

“I was really fortunate in that I knew what I wanted to do,” Whitworth once told Golf Digest. “Golf just grabbed me by the throat. I can’t tell you how much I loved it. I used to think everyone knew what they wanted to do when they were 15 years old.”

Wright had the more aesthetically pleasing swing. Whitworth was all about grinding, and about winning.

Whitworth won eight times in 1963 and 1965, and she had 11 victories in 1968. In none of those years did she earn more than $50,000. All these years later, the LPGA Tour total prize fund for 2023 will top $100 million.

Whitworth continued to conduct junior clinics and stay active in the game.

“I don’t think about the legacy of 88 tournaments,” she once said. “I did it because I wanted to win, not to set a record or a goal that no one else could surpass. I’m not some great oddity. I was just fortunate to be so successful. What I did in being a better player does not make me a better person.

“When I’m asked how I would like to be remembered, I feel that if people remember me at all, it will be good enough.”

/ / /

InterPride’s bad decision to abandon Taiwan

As many in the LGBTQ community in Washington, D.C. discovered recently, our city will now host WorldPride in 2025. Many of the initial reactions I saw from those in my immediate network were a mix of excitement and skepticism – does D.C. have the “gay infrastructure” to support hosting a global Pride event? According to InterPride, the U.S.-based non-profit organization that owns the licensing rights for WorldPride, the answer is yes.  However, what seemed to get lost in the conversation was why D.C. was newly awarded as the host for this event after publicly losing its bid to host WorldPride back in 2021 to Taiwan.

In August of this year, the WorldPride 2025 Taiwan Preparation Committee announced that it was withdrawing from hosting the global celebration after a dispute with InterPride over the name of the event. The host committee insisted on calling it “WorldPride Taiwan 2025” while InterPride insisted that the event be called “WorldPride Kaohsiung” in tradition with using the name of the host city and not that of the host country. The committee did not accept this name change and Taiwan will no longer host the event, as revealed in an announcement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Taiwan.

There is much he-said-she-said in competing press releases and subsequent interviews of how InterPride and the committee arrived at this point. It is certain that not all of the behind-the-scenes negotiations are fully available to the public and it appears that the fallout ultimately comes down to the disagreement over the name of the event. 

InterPride’s decision that this event would no longer take place in Taiwan is ultimately harmful for the LGBTQ community in Taiwan and East Asia as a whole.  InterPride is squarely to blame and fails to stand up for the rights of our community by failing to engage in the public demonstration of Pride that has made the LGBTQ rights movement successful over the better part of the last century.

InterPride’s decision to dictate the name of the event shows a Western-minded lack of regard for the local and regional politics of East Asia and continues the imperialist trend of dictating terms to the Global South. By awarding this event, InterPride should have allowed the committee to choose its own name for the event. Mind you, the name that they initially bid and submitted all of the paperwork with throughout the bidding process and ultimately published for the announcement of the award was “WorldPride 2025 Taiwan.”

InterPride co-president Linda DeMarco has insisted that the reason for the name change was not motivated by geo-political tensions. It is disheartening that InterPride tried to distance itself from politics when the movement they support has its foundational roots in politics. It also seems highly implausible that InterPride did not consider the geo-political tensions in which Taiwan is currently ensnared. InterPride should take a stance in supporting Taiwan and allowing them to choose the name for this global event. In shying away, InterPride is failing to align itself with the country with the best record of LGBTQ rights in East Asia.

Awarding Taiwan with the 2025 event was monumental and invaluable for raising the profile of LGBTQ rights in East Asia, which are tenuous and not widespread.  InterPride distancing itself from this stance is a disservice to the LGBTQ community in Taiwan and East Asia as a whole. Dictating that the committee step down from using the name “Taiwan” disregards the complex history and identity of the Taiwanese people and the LGBTQ community there. InterPride’s failure to stand up for Taiwan by allowing them to use their chosen name for the event is symbolic of the Western imperialism mindset that is still pervasive in the LGBTQ community and Western-based international organizations. The committee has every right to make the event in their image. InterPride has taken away agency from the committee and the LGBTQ community in Taiwan from deciding the name of their own event in a way that is hard not to read as imperialist.

We can all agree that Pride is an inherently political event. When forced to take a stance on allowing the committee to use Taiwan in the name for the event, InterPride balked and claimed to not be political. It betrays the history of the LGBTQ movement to not take a political stance and instead disengage with the committee and Taiwan as a whole. To co-president Hadi Damien who is on record saying that traditionally the name of the event is based on the city that the event is held and not the country, it should be asked why InterPride feels they need to cling to this nonsensical and baseless tradition? 

While the final preparations for WorldPride 2023 Sydney are underway, D.C. begins to prepare to host its event, and Amsterdam celebrates their announcement of hosting WorldPride in 2026, it is critical that we as a community examine where we sit in the broader context of the global LGBTQ movement. InterPride’s inflexibility and decision to move the event away from Taiwan should be a reminder that we have a duty to support our community both at home and abroad. In America we certainly have a very tough and long road ahead of us in terms of achieving full equality for our community.  But that does not excuse us from not exercising our privilege in the global community from seeking to lift fellow community members around the world and support their fight for rights.

I hope that we as a community will keep this in mind and start holding organizations like InterPride accountable to the community at large. I call on InterPride to announce a WorldPride event in a city outside of the Global North. Until then, I will look forward to WorldPride in Washington, D.C. in 2025 and elevating our city to the global stage.

Parker Griffin is gay D.C.-based professional who has worked in international development and is an advocate for LGBTQ rights.

/ /

Brittney Griner faces violence, bigotry and threat of torture in Russian penal colony, experts say

,

The 32-year-old was sentenced in August to nine years in a Russian penal colony after pleading guilty to drug charges. She was reportedly found at an airport with vape cartridges containing cannabis oil. 

At her sentencing, Griner told the court she had made “an honest mistake” and she “never meant to break any laws”. 

In early November, Griner was moved from a detention centre to the IK-2 penal colony in Yavas, Mordovia – some 480 kilometres southeast of Moscow. 

University of Helsinki sociologist Olga Zeveleva told The Guardian prisons in the area “are notoriously terrible, even by Russian standards”. 

“It is a place any prisoner wants to avoid”. 

University of Oxford professor Judith Pallot, who specialises in the human geography of Russia and has visited IK-2, also told The Guardian it is “very sterile and sad”.

“The Russian prison system isn’t interested in rehabilitation, it is based on retribution and punishment. It is a system underpinned by violence.”

According to The Nation, IK-2 is a penal colony notorious for racism and homophobia, with locals expressing shock someone as famous as Brittney Griner would be held there. 

Nadya Tolokonnikova, a member of Russian activist band Pussy Riot, spent two years in a Mordovia prison. 

She told MSNBC Reports she was terrified for Griner, with IK-2 is “literally the harshest colony in the whole Russian prison system”. 

People could be left working up to 17 hours a day and punished – “that includes torture” – if they don’t meet quotas, Tolokonnikova said. 

Similarly, the head of Rus Sidyashchaya (Russia Behind Bars), an organisation defending the rights of inmates in Russia, Olga Romanova, told The Moscow Times some detainees at IK-2 have reported labour conditions being “not far from slavery”. 

Romanova said Brittney Griner being “lesbian, American, and Black” could make her a prime target for harassment. 

“It’s a good thing she doesn’t speak Russian, she won’t be able to understand what people say to her.”

Romanova thought “that could solve some of her problems”.

However, she said Griner “will be in danger” if negotiations for a possible prisoner swap between the United States and Russia ended. 

On Monday (28 November), Reuters published the US chargée d’affaires in Moscow, Elizabeth Rood, as telling Russia’s state-owned RIA news agency that the US “has not received a serious response” to “a significant proposal”. 

Ten days prior, Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said he was hopeful of a prisoner swap. 

/ /

Australia’s FIFA World Cup Team First to Collectively Back Workers, LGBT Rights

,

Australia’s national men’s football team, the Socceroos, just became the first FIFA World Cup side to collectively speak up on human rights issues in Qatar. In a powerful video released on October 27, sixteen current and former Australian players, supported by the broader playing group, expressed their solidarity with migrant workers and LGBT people, making it clear that “universal values like dignity, trust, respect and courage should define football values.”

Players correctly assessed the situation in Qatar, where important reforms have been introduced but require better implementation. More importantly, they acknowledged that the decision to host the World Cup in Qatar resulted in preventable suffering and harm to “countless migrant workers,” who are not covered by recent reforms.  

FIFA did not require Qatar to make labor rights commitments for the millions of migrant workers that FIFA knew Qatar would need to build the World Cup infrastructure.

“These migrant workers who suffered are not just numbers. Like the migrants that have shaped our country and our football, they possessed the same courage and determination to build a better life,” said president of the players union and former Socceroos player Alex Wilkinson 

In the video, the Socceroos strongly endorsed an effective remedy for migrant workers who have been denied their rights, supporting a migrant workers center and the decriminalization of all same-sex relationships.

Qatari authorities responded to the video insisting that “no country is perfect,” and that “Protecting the health, safety, security and dignity of every worker contributing to this World Cup is our priority.” But they fell short of committing to set up a remedy fund for workers who faced abuses because reforms came too late or were weakly implemented.  

In May, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty, and a global coalition of rights groups, unions, and fans, launched the #PayUpFIFA campaign, demanding FIFA provide financial compensation for serious abuses against migrant workers, including deaths, injuries, unpaid wages, and exorbitant recruitment costs.

By endorsing the remedy call, the Socceroos join seven other football associations, as well as sponsors, political leaders, and fans.

Unprecedented, bold acts of solidarity by both current and former Australian football players have set an important example. FIFA should follow up by announcing it will make right the abuses it has both enabled and will profit from.

/ /

Qatar has detained and mistreated LGBTQ people ahead of World Cup, rights group says

 Security forces in Qatar arbitrarily arrested and abused LGBTQ Qataris as recently as last month, Human Rights Watch said on Monday, in the run-up to hosting soccer’s World Cup which has put a spotlight on human rights issues in the Gulf Arab state.

Homosexuality is illegal in the conservative Muslim country, and some soccer stars have raised concerns over the rights of fans traveling for the event, especially LGBTQ individuals and women, whom rights groups say Qatari laws discriminate against.

A Qatari official said in a statement that HRW’s allegations “contain information that is categorically and unequivocally false,” without specifying.

Organizers of the World Cup, which starts on Nov. 20 and is the first held in a Middle Eastern nation, say that everyone, no matter their sexual orientation or background, is welcome, while also warning against public displays of affection.

“Freedom of expression and nondiscrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity should be guaranteed, permanently, for all residents of Qatar, not just spectators going to Qatar for the World Cup,” HRW said in a statement.

The organization said it had interviewed six LGBTQ Qataris, including four transgender women, one bisexual woman and one gay man, who reported being detained between 2019 and 2022 and subjected to verbal and physical abuse, including kicking and punching.

They were detained without charge in an underground prison in Doha, HRW said, and one individual was held for two months in solitary confinement.

“All six said that police forced them to sign pledges indicating that they would ‘cease immoral activity,’” it said, adding that transgender women detainees were mandated to attend conversion therapy sessions at a government-sponsored clinic.

Qatar does not “license or operate ‘conversion centres,’” the Qatari official said.

One of the transgender Qatari women interviewed by HRW told Reuters on condition of anonymity that she was arrested several times, most recently this summer when she was held for several weeks.

Authorities had stopped her due to her appearance or for possessing make-up, the woman said, adding that she had been beaten to the point of bleeding and had her head shaved.

The behavior center she was mandated to attend told the woman she had a gender identity disorder and accused her of being transgender in search of “sympathy from others.”

“The last thing I want is sympathy, I just want to be myself,” she said.

/ /

Rand Paul’s new campaign ad claims trans athletes are killing the dreams of young girls

,

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has released an anti-trans campaign ad as part of his reelection campaign.

The ad features former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, who has been vocal in opposing trans swimmer Lia Thomas’s participation in women’s NCAA competitions. Gaines tied with Thomas for fifth place in the 200-meter freestyle at this year’s NCAA championships.

In the ad, Gaines claimed that “for girls across America” the dream of being a successful athlete is “being taken away by men competing in women’s sports.” At that moment, a photo of Thomas appears on the screen.

LGBTQ Nation

“Sadly, few stood up for me,” Gaines said. “But Rand Paul is not afraid to fight for fairness for women and girls.”

Rand Paul then speaks to approve the message “because I’ll always fight for fairness.”

Gaines has been speaking out against trans athletes for a long time and has become a mouthpiece for anti-trans Republicans.

In 2021, she appeared in an attack ad put out by the Republican Governor’s Association against Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) after she vetoed bills banning trans girls from women’s sports.

“I was forced to share a locker room with a biological man. It was uncomfortable and it was wrong.” Gaines said in the ad.

“This has to stop,” she concluded. “If Laura Kelly can’t protect women, she shouldn’t be governor.”

Gaines also recently joined Herschel Walker, Georgia’s anti-LGBTQ Republican Senate nominee, at a rally where Walker voiced his belief that trans kids will not get into heaven.

This is also far from the first time Paul has taken a stance against the trans community.

Last year, Paul went on an anti-transgender tirade when questioning Admiral Rachel Levine, who was at the time President Biden’s nominee for assistant secretary of health. She now holds the position.

Paul decided to rant about how gender affirming health care for transgender kids should be banned instead of left up to families and doctors. He peddled lies about transgender health care and the treatments available to trans youth and peppered Levine with questions about trans identities, declaring that transitioning is a “temporary, superficial fix for a very complex identity issue.”

“You give a woman testosterone enough that she grows a beard,” he said, “you think she’s going to go back to looking like a woman when she stops the testosterone?”

In another rant around that time, Paul called trans girls “hulking six-foot-four guys”

“Are we all gonna be OK with hulking six-foot-four guys, you know, wrestling against girls doing- You know, it just makes no sense whatsoever.”

/ /

Russian court sets Brittney Griner appeal for Oct. 25

A Russian court on Monday set Oct. 25 as the date for American basketball star Brittney Griner’s appeal against her nine-year prison sentence for drug possession.

Griner, an eight-time all-star center with the WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and a two-time Olympic gold medalist, was convicted Aug. 4 after police said they found vape canisters containing cannabis oil in her luggage at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport.

The Moscow region court said it will hear her appeal.

Griner admitted that she had the canisters in her luggage, but testified that she had inadvertently packed them in haste and that she had no criminal intent. Her defense team presented written statements that she had been prescribed cannabis to treat pain.

Court date for Brittney Griner appeal set for Oct. 25

OCT. 3, 202200:23

Her February arrest came at a time of heightened tensions between Moscow and Washington, just days before Russia sent troops into Ukraine. At the time, Griner, recognized as one of the greatest players in WNBA history, was returning to Russia, where she played during the U.S. league’s offseason.

The nine-year sentence was close to the maximum of 10 years, and Griner’s lawyers argued after the conviction that the punishment was excessive. They said in similar cases defendants have received an average sentence of about five years, with about a third of them granted parole.

Before her conviction, the U.S. State Department declared Griner to be “wrongfully detained” — a charge that Russia has sharply rejected.

Reflecting the growing pressure on the Biden administration to do more to bring Griner home, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken took the unusual step of revealing publicly in July that Washington had made a “substantial proposal” to get Griner home, along with Paul Whelan, an American serving a 16-year sentence in Russia for espionage.

Blinken didn’t elaborate, but The Associated Press and other news organizations have reported that Washington has offered to exchange Griner and Whelan for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer who is serving a 25-year sentence in the U.S. and once earned the nickname the “merchant of death.”

The White House said it has not yet received a productive response from Russia to the offer.

Russian diplomats have refused to comment on the U.S. proposal and urged Washington to discuss the matter in confidential talks, avoiding public statements.

U.S. President Joe Biden met last month with Cherelle Griner, the wife of Brittney Griner, as well as the player’s agent, Lindsay Colas. Biden also sat down separately with Elizabeth Whelan, Paul Whelan’s sister.

The White House said after the meetings that the president stressed to the families his “continued commitment to working through all available avenues to bring Brittney and Paul home safely.”

The Biden administration carried out a prisoner swap in April, with Moscow releasing Marine veteran Trevor Reed in exchange for the U.S. releasing a Russian pilot, Konstantin Yaroshenko, convicted in a drug trafficking conspiracy.

«‹ 11 12 13 14›»