Category: Sports

Homophobic chants ground a football match in Mexico to a halt as players were forced off the pitch.

Players left the field for some 10 minutes in the Concacaf Champions League semi-final second leg in Mexico City which saw Cruz Azul fair against Monterrey.

At around the 64-minute mark in Azteca Stadium, the match was frozen as Cruz Azul fans began hurling homophobic insults from the stands.

Cruz Azul was trailing Monterry 4-1 at the time. They had also resorted to similar homophobic language earlier in the match that forced referees to issue a stern warning.

The supporters shouted the “goalkeeper chant”, which typically sees Mexican fans chant “ehhh…” as the opponent’s goalkeeper lines up a goal kick until the kick is followed by a cry of “p**o!” – anti-gay slang for a male sex worker.

Such a slur has long given football chiefs a headache, and Thursday night’s (16 September) game was no exception.

Football body condemns ‘offensive and discriminatory’ homophobic chant

The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, the football association otherwise known as Concacaf, said it will investigate the “offensive and discriminatory” comments.

A “large number” of Cruz Azul fans took part in the chart, Concacaf said in anews release on its website.

“We commend the referees for correctly activating the anti-discrimination protocol and the stadium security for ejecting hundreds of Cruz Azul fans when the match was paused,” the governing body said.

“The Confederation has for several months proactively communicated to fans, through its What’s Wrong Is Wrong campaign, that these types of behaviours have no place in football.

“We are all committed to eradicating the discriminatory ‘goalkeeper’ chant.”

In line with Concacaf’s discriminatory language policy, the game had to be briefly suspended as players from both sides walked off the pitch and returned to their locker rooms.

If fans had continued to chant, referees would have been forced to enter “Step Three” of the policy which sees the match stopped altogether.

The match resumed, however, without a hitch. Ending with Monterrey making it to the finals on a 5-1 aggregate.

A similar incident took place in June when FIFA, the sport’s top regulator, ordered a ban on spectators at two World Cup qualifier matches after Mexico fans refused to stop screaming the homophobic slur “p**o” at opposing players.

Las Vegas Raiders star Carl Nassib has made history as the first openly gay player to play during an NFL game.

Nassib contributed to the Raiders nail-biting 33-27 win over the Baltimore Ravens on Monday (13 September).

Nassib, who came out publicly as gay in June, told reporters that he was happy the team got to win on the “day I kind of made a little bit of history”.

“I had a lot of people come before me in the LGBTQ community that helped me get to where I am, and I’m super thankful for that,” Nassib said, USA Todayreported.

He added that the atmosphere in the stadium that night was absolutely “bananas” and said the team “loved the enthusiasm from fans”, according to CNN.

“This was my first experience of Raiders fans – by far the best NFL fans I’ve ever seen,” the defensive lineman added.

Nassib caused a game-changing fumble which clinched the win in overtime, helping the Raiders earn their third straight season-opening win.

Raiders’ head coach Jon Gruden hinted there was every chance that Nassib could play in future games. According to USA Today, he said Nassib had a “great training camp”, and the team will “need him here obviously as we move forward” in the season.

Nassib caused a game-changing fumble which clinched the win in overtime, helping the Raiders earn their third straight season-opening win.

Raiders’ head coach Jon Gruden hinted there was every chance that Nassib could play in future games. According to USA Today, he said Nassib had a “great training camp”, and the team will “need him here obviously as we move forward” in the season.

Last month, Carl Nassib opened up about how his teammates reacted to him coming out. He described how he got a “great” reception from his fellow players, adding he knew their reaction was “going to be good”.

“I had zero stress about that,” Nassib told reporters. “Absolutely no worries about that.”

He received “nothing but love and support” from his “great teammates”.

“Football players get a bad rep, but we’re humble, hardworking, accepting people, and this is a great example of that,” Nassib added.

Out cyclist Crystal Lane-Wright is the latest queer athlete to win big at the Tokyo Paralympics, securing two silver medals for Team LGBT+.

The 35-year-old British Paralympic track and road cyclist won her first silver on the velodrome in the 3000 metre individual pursuit on 25 August, the opening day of the competition.

She went on to win a second silver medal on Tuesday (31 August) in the Women’s C5 Road Time Trial with the incredible time of 37:40.89 over 32 kilometres (19.88 miles).

On both occasions she was beaten by fellow Brit Dame Sarah Storey, a former swimmer turned cyclist who happens to be the most successful British Paralympian of all time.

“I don’t think I’ve reached my full potential. I think I can keep getting better,” Lane-Wright told the BBC after the 3000m event. “As much as I’m up against Sarah, it’s me against me. I can only control what I can do. To get such a good PB this morning, I’m so pleased.”

Lane-Wright actually became an elite cyclist in part due to Storey, who noticed her at a 2009 British Cycling talent search event and took her under her wing.

She has one more chance to beat her mentor in the upcoming Women’s C4-5 Road Race on 2 September, but no matter the result, she takes encouragement from knowing she’s competing against the best of all time.

“[Sarah’s] pushing the boundaries all the time in our category,” she told Leicester Live. “It just means that whenever I retire I can look back and I think I know I was the best I ever could be. If I was winning everything, maybe complacency would step in.

“Everything I do, I’m doing to my absolute best so whatever medal colour I win or wherever I come at least I know I’ve given 110 per cent and I can only be pleased with that.”

Crystal Lane-Wright now has four Paralympics medals in total, including the silver and bronze she took in Rio 2016.

Her latest effort makes her the second member of Team LGBT+ to have more than one medal at these Games, according to Outsports, joining the British equestrian Lee Pearson.

When the 2020 Paralympics kick off on Aug. 24, there will be at least 27 openly LGBTQ athletes from eight countries competing, according to LGBTQ sports site Outsports. 

That’s more than double the 12 who competed at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio, and it comes after record-setting representation at the Tokyo Summer Games, where at least 185 queer Olympians competed, according to Outsports. 

Lauren Appelbaum of RespectAbility, a nonprofit that works to change how society views people with disabilities, said the increased visibility points to the “large intersection” between the LGBTQ and disabled communities.

“We hope that even more out athletes participate in the future,” Appelbaum said in a statement, “as it is critical for all disabled people to have positive role models for success.”

As with the Summer Olympics, the majority of openly LGBTQ Paralympians are women, including four members of Great Britain’s women’s wheelchair basketball team — Jude Hamer, Robyn Love, Lucy Robinson and Laurie Williams. 

Williams and Love, a couple for more than six years, got engaged in February 2020, shortly before the start of the pandemic.https://iframe.nbcnews.com/GZyiJKd?app=1

“I couldn’t imagine what my GB journey would have been like if Laurie and I weren’t together,” Love wrote on Instagram, using a shortened term for Team Great Britain. “I don’t think I would have progressed so quickly without her pushing me so hard, I can still hear ‘one more push’ in my head every time I’m defending.”

The only out gay man at the Tokyo Paralympics is Sir David Lee Pearson, a highly decorated para-equestrian who has won gold 11 times at the Paralympics. 

There are also two nonbinary Paralympians competing, both Australian: Wheelchair racer Robyn Lambird and Maria “Maz” Strong, who competes in seated shot put. https://iframe.nbcnews.com/m1LmGwL?app=1

“I love seeing our out Paralympians highlighted because it shows that while we still have a ways to go, as a society, we have become more accepting,” Team USA sitting volleyball player Monique Matthews told Outsports. “People are able to be their authentic selves and feel safe.”

Like the Olympics, the 2020 Paralympics were delayed a year because of the Covid-19 pandemic. During that downtime, American cyclist Monica Sereda, an Army veteran, found love: She and her partner, Samantha, recently celebrated their one-year anniversary. 

“She has been a wonderful, amazing partner and supporter,” Sereda told Watermark Online, adding that, because Samantha is a psychotherapist, “she’s been a huge blessing because she’s able to understand disabilities.”https://iframe.nbcnews.com/23QU39R?app=1

Triathlete Hailey Danz, who will also represent Team USA, came out as gay in a heartfelt Instagram in November 2020, admitting “I‘ve spent much of my life building dams — constructing barriers that prevented me from flowing freely — in an attempt to hide my sexuality. ⁣⁣⁣”⁣

“I know there are a lot of people who say that sexuality has no place in sport; that the press should stop sensationalizing who we love and simply focus on the game,” Danz elaborated in a piece on the Team USA website in June. “To those people let me say this: it was by seeing openly gay athletes that I’ve been able to work through my shame and insecurities and accept who I am.” https://iframe.nbcnews.com/byOqJYu?app=1

The Paralympics are the largest sporting event in the world for people with disabilities — this year, welcoming more than 3,500 athletes from at least 134 nations to compete in a total of 540 events across 22 sports, including, for the first time, badminton and Taekwondo.

First held in Rome in 1960, the Paralympic Games were created “to allow athletes with disabilities to strive for and reach the pinnacle of athletic excellence,” according to RespectAbility.

The Winter and Summer Paralympics are held in the same city as the Olympics and use the same facilities. Eligible disabilities are divided into different categories and classifications and vary by sport.

Volkswagen has claimed that UEFA blocked the company from using rainbow-coloured banners on advertising boards at the Euro 2020 quarter-finals in Russia and Azerbaijan.

The auto-maker, a years-long sponsor of the football competition, alleged that the governing body voiced “concerns with regard to the legal framework at the venues in Russia and Azerbaijan”.

UEFA had approved pitch-side rainbow advertising from a raft of companies for all eight of the round of 16 matches in the Euro 2020 tournament.

But Volkswagen officials told The Athletic that UEFA blocked them from extending its rainbow-hued LED advertising boards to St Petersburg and Baku, a decision the German company says it “regrets”.

“Volkswagen took a clear stand for diversity with the colouring of the advertising banners in the round of 16 games throughout Europe,” a spokesperson said.

“To continue to openly and consistently demonstrate this open-minded outlook when it comes to respect and equal rights, the plan was for our rainbow banners to be displayed again in the upcoming quarter-final games in St Petersburg, Munich, Baku and Rome.

“Due to concerns of UEFA with regard to the legal framework at the venues in Russia and Azerbaijan, the association informed us that it was not possible to use rainbow-coloured banners on the advertising boards in St Petersburg and Baku.

“We regret this development. Regardless of this, the LED advertising boards will be used as a colourful statement of diversity and respect in the two remaining quarter-finals in Munich and Rome and, if possible, in the remaining games of the tournament.”

UEFA ‘fully supports tolerance’

It’s the latest flashpoint in UEFA‘s increasingly shaky relationship with the LGBT+ community after it denied Munich officials’ request to light up the Fussball-Arena Munich in the colours of the Pride flag in response to Hungary’s anti-LGBT+ law.

The lighting request was meant to be a defiant statement against Hungarian lawmakers passing a law last month that bars the “promotion” of LGBT+ people to minors in schools, the media and advertisements.

A gay dad has emphatically shut down homophobes who think queer people shouldn’t be parents after his son qualified for the Olympics.

Jerry Windle is the proud father of Jordan Windle, a 22-year-old diver who recently qualified for the men’s diving team for the Tokyo Olympics.

Tragically, both of Jordan’s biological parents died when he was just a baby. Jerry later adopted him in Cambodia and nursed him back to health after he had suffered from malnutrition, scabies and intestinal parasites.

Jordan later started diving at the age of seven – and he is now set to achieve a lifelong dream of representing the United States at the Olympics.

“Although there have been some people who didn’t think a gay person could raise a well-balanced, mentally healthy child or should be allowed to raise children; our story is definitive proof that that assumption is purely wrong and is a fallacy,” Jerry told Queerty.

“Jordan is a humble, kind, generous, and nurturing human being who knows and believes all humans are created equal and every human being deserves to be happy, to love and be loved unconditionally – PERIOD.

For the most part, the diving community has been incredibly supportive of our family. In fact, I’ve had many of Jordan’s friends tell him that he had the best dad in the world – and I suppose I’m one of the ‘cool dads’!” he added.

Gay dad Jerry Windle reflected on the sacrifices his son made to achieve his dream

Elsewhere in the interview, Jerry reflected on the personal sacrifices Jordan has made to get to where he is today.

“He has worked tirelessly for 15 years chasing his dream; he has given up high school dances, prom, football games, homecoming, etc, to achieve his goal.

“I have never pushed Jordan in his sport. This has been his journey, and I am so proud to have been able to give him the opportunity, and to be there to support him.

“I never wanted Jordan to feel pressure from me as many athletes do. I’ve always supported his decisions as it relates to his journey chasing the Olympic Dream.”

Trailblazing BMX rider Chelsea Wolfe is going to the Tokyo Olympics, becoming the first trans athlete to join the Team USA roster.

Wolfe will travel to Tokyo as a reserve athlete, according to Huffington Post, and will only compete if one of the two qualifying riders – Hannah Roberts and Perris Benegas – drops out.

The athlete, who has spoken openly about her trans identity and her Olympic dreams, said it is still “taking a bit to register”  that she’s going to Tokyo.

Writing on Instagram, she reflected on how she has gone through “so much work” and come “so many obstacles” to get to this point.

“I am positively a different person than when I set off on this journey and I’m so grateful for every experience along the way and I’m so excited and honored to keep working so I’m ready to shred in Tokyo in case I’m needed,” Wolfe wrote.

Both riders are part of the LGBT+ community. Roberts announced her marriage to her wife earlier this year, and Benegas came out as gay in a heartwarming post on social media in May.

Wolfe also shared a glimpse of her Olympics uniform which is, of course, red, white and blue and has her surname emblazoned on the back. She also showed off a mountain of Team USA merch.

Chelsea Wolfe clinched the reserve spot on Team USA after she took fifth place in the final standings at the UCI Urban World Championships earlier this month. The win put her in third overall in the USA rankings, which boosted her into the alternate spot for the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Mexico’s national football team has begged fans to stop the homophobic chanting that’s led to FIFA banning spectators from two World Cup qualifier matches.

FIFA slapped the sanctions on the Mexican soccer federation (FMF) last month after several matches were marred by fans chanting “p**o”, a homophobic slur that’s plagued Mexican football for years.

“If we don’t have a chance to participate in the World Cup, that’s going to be awful for everybody – for us, the federation, for the players and for the fans and supporters as well,” Torrado told The Tennessean. “So we need them to continue supporting us, but in a good way.”

He said the team are living through “a tough moment” as FIFA investigates alleged homophobia at four recent games in the US, three of which were halted by officials because of fan behaviour.

As well as a spectator ban FIFA also fined the FMF $65,000, prompting the organisation’s president, Yon de Luisa, to issue a stern warning to fans.

“What for some seemed to be fun, I have news for you. It isn’t,” he said at a news conference on 18 June. “Because of it we’re kept out of the stadium and kept away from our national team. Please stop. Stop now.”

His words were echoed by team manager Gerardo “Tata” Martino, who also urged fans to clean up their language.

“We’re living through a hard situation,” he said. “I want to stress to the fans, come to the stadium. Come enjoy yourselves. We will put on a good show for you. But support us and respect the opponent.”

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With tensions running high ahead of the CONCACAF Gold Cup on 10 July, the national team has tweeted out yet another warning to fans.

The tweet, featuring the hashtag #SupportWithoutOffending, highlights the escalating sanctions if the offensive chant is used, starting with a fan being ejected to players having to leave the field to a possible forfeit of the match.

“Because of one word, we could all be silenced,” the video says. “A World Cup means a lot to all of us. It is a passion for millions of us. Let’s not let the actions of a few ruin it for all of us.

Two Namibian sprinters have been blocked from competing in the women’s 400m at the Olympics because their natural testosterone levels have been deemed too high.

Christine Mboma and Beatrice Masilingi, who are both cisgender women, were forced to undergo medical assessments while they were at a training camp in Italy.

The tests were requested by World Athletics, according to the Namibia Olympic Committee, and their results “indicated that both athletes have a natural high testosterone level,” a statement continued.

“According to the rules of World Athletics, this means that they are not eligible to participate in events from 400m to 1600m,” officials added.

“Both Christine and Beatrice will be able to compete in the 100m and 200m events,” the statement added.

NBC reported Mbomba ran 48.54 seconds to win a 400m race in Poland on Wednesday (30 June), which was an under-20 world record and the seventh-fastest 400m by a woman of all time, suggesting she may well have taken the gold medal.

Masilingi had the third-fastest time behind Mbomba and Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas, the current Olympic champion.

Namibian sprinters hit by same rule that tried to force Caster Semenya to alter her body

World Athletics has previously been criticised over its rules for athletes with so-called “differences of sexual development” (DSD).

It introduced the current limits on testosterone levels for female athletes in 2018 before they came into effect a year later.

The rules apply for races between 400m and one mile and combined events over the same distances, and forces certain women to artificially alter their natural hormone levels should they wish to compete. The UN has condemned such practices as “unnecessary, humiliating and harmful”.

Most famously, the rule curtailed the career of Caster Semenya, a cisgender woman who is a two-time Olympic champion.

Semenya has launched several legal appeals against the ban, calling the rules unfair and discriminatory. The Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected her challenge in May 2019. She appealed the decision to the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland, which ultimately rejected her case in September 2020.

Semenya filed an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights in February this year. There has been no ruling yet.

In April, she admitted to the Guardian that the long legal battle has taken “the soul out of my body”. She added that she refused to undergo treatment to lower her natural testosterone level.

“They want me to take my own system down,” Semenya told the Guardian. “I’m not sick. I don’t need drugs. I will never do that.”

The parents of a 13-year-old girl have launched a federal lawsuit to challenge Florida’s reviled ban on trans girls taking part in school sports.

Mounted by the Human Rights Campaign, one of the largest LGBT+ advocacy groups in the US, the lawsuit argues that the ban violates both the constitution and existing federal anti-discrimination law.

It was filed on behalf of Daisy, an avid football player aged 13, and her parents. Under Florida’s anti-trans sports law, she will be forced to play either on the boys’ team or quit the sport altogether.

“Playing sports makes me feel like I fit in,” Daisy said in a press releaseissued Wednesday (30 June). “The thought of not being able to play next year scares me. I’m going to be lonely and sad if I can’t place.”

HRC hopes to send a message to Florida governor Ron DeSantis that “you cannot target our community without retribution”. Further lawsuits will be filed against similar laws in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee, it added.

Kids just want to play sports,” HRC president Alphonso David said, “and are confused about why their state’s leaders, who are elected to represent them, are so determined to hurt them.

“There is no way to be more clear: transgender children are children; transgender girls are girls; transgender boys are boys; and our community deserves respect, dignity and equal protection under the law.”

Florida’s anti-trans sports ban ‘isolates’ trans teens

Florida became the seventh US state this year to ban trans youth from competing on girl’s sports teams at the start of June.

DeSantis signed SB1028 – dubbed “The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” – into law on the first day of Pride Month, crushing kids like Daisy.

According to the suit, Daisy has played football since she was eight, has played basketball and softball at school and currently is a goalie on three different soccer teams.

The litigation states she first received gender-affirming healthcare in middle school and never encountered opposition from her teammates, rival athletes, coaches or parents of fellow players when it came to playing sports.

Now working with the law firm Arnold & Porter, her parents have rallied behind her efforts to challenge the ban.

“It is a very helpless feeling to know that people think our daughter does not deserve the rights to play sports with her friends — she has been playing with them for the last seven years and it has not been an issue,” her parents said in a statement.

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“Taking this right away will only further isolate her from her peers. As her parents, we just want her to be happy.”

HRC is taking aim at the legislation on several grounds. The suit argues that the ban violates the 14th Amendment, which guarantees Americans equal protection under the law, as well as Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools.

The Department of Education extended Title IX protections to trans pupils earlier this month, saying that all trans youth deserve to “thrive“.

The suit comes after the Justice Department filed statements of interest in two similar lawsuits that aim to reverse laws in West Virginia and Arkansas that target trans athletes and gender-affirming healthcare respectively.

The department said that such laws are unconstitutional.