Month: October 2012

Tonight HBO’s Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel dives into the increasingly pertinent question: Why has a big-time pro team-sport athlete not come out in the United States? For the piece, Jon Frankel sat down with recently out boxer Orlando Cruz, Wade Davis, LZ Granderson and myself. The 70-second preview, which focuses on Frankel's conversation with […]

Fawn Yacker is the director of The Last Closet, a campaign to end homophobia in men's pro sports. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell Over 50,000 athletes have participated in the five major U.S. sports leagues since their inception. None have come out publicly while actively playing. The Last Closet is calling on members of the sports […]

Matt Savoie, left, and Brian Boyle (Photo via Icenetwork). Matt Savoie, a member of the 2006 U.S. men's Olympic figure skating team, married his partner Brian Boyle at a ceremony this month in Sturbridge, Mass. The two men are lawyers in Boston and were engaged in November 2010. “One thing that even our officiant talked […]

Kris Jenkins Last Thursday former New York Jet and Carolina Panther Kris Jenkins spent several minutes talking about gays in the NFL on CBS Radio's Boomer & Carton show. It was hard to figure out exactly what Jenkins was trying to say, as he wove together the color pink, hetero sapiens and a call for […]

Featherweight boxer Orlando Cruz, who came out of the closet several weeks ago, won his first match as an openly gay boxer Friday night in Kissimmee, Fla. He beat Jorge Pazos by unanimous decision. From ESPN: “That was my moment, my opportunity, my event,” Cruz said Friday night after the bout, his mother, Dominga Torres-Rivera, […]

As you may know, The Price Is Right featured its first male model this week. Rob Wilson, “from the city of champions,” won a nationwide search for the one-week trial run on the long-running daytime game show. What you might not know is that Wilson got his start modeling underwear for our friends at International […]

Nepal hosted South Asia’s first-ever gay sports tournament last weekend at Dasharath Rangashala Stadium, the nation’s largest sports venue. Over 300 athletes from across Asia — and around the world — participated in track & field, basketball, badminton, volleyball, soccer and karate. Out former Olympic diver Greg Louganis was the guest of honor at the […]

The Vancouver Canucks will turn their home ice, Rogers Arena, purple on Friday in a show of support for GLAAD’s Spirit Day and for the You Can Play Project. While the preseason games that should be in the arena have been canceled due to the player lockout, it’s an impressive showing of commitment from this […]

Chris Kluwe will debate an empty chair on the merits of the Minnesota ballot amendment that would ban same-sex marriage in the state constitution. Since opponents of gay marriage have zero arguments in their favor, the chair is an appropriate stand-in. Kluwe is scheduled to debate “an empty chair” on Minnesota’s proposed marriage amendment at […]

As we’ve said over and over, the sports world has transformed. In an unprecedented development, all of the major pro sports leagues in the United States have agreed to be part of GLAAD’s Spirit Day on Friday. This would have never happened 10 years ago. From GLAAD: In an unprecedented show of support, GLAAD today […]

Orlando Cruz (Photo: Juan Luis Martinez Perez) Featherweight boxer Orlando Cruz will fight for the first time since publicly coming out as gay. He will fight Jorge Pazos, Friday night at 11:35 p.m. EDT from Kissimmee, Fla. The fight will be televised by Boxeo Telemundo, an NBC network (check your local listings). This will be […]

Former Carolina Panthers and New York Jets nose tackle Kris Jenkins joined Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton on their CBS Radio show, Boomer & Carton, this morning. Jenkins shared his thoughts on what’s wrong with the Jets, among other NFL-related topics. But when conversation turned to the NFL’s Breast Cancer Awareness month, and all of […]

Los Angeles swimmers at Gay Games I (via FGG) The Federation of Gay Games celebrates its 30th anniversary this weekend in Los Angeles. The first Gay Games took place in San Francisco, Aug. 28 – Sept. 2, 1982. The celebration takes place Saturday and Sunday around West Hollywood and Los Angeles, including book readings of […]

The NFL Network and NFL.com have been teaming up all year to bring feature vignettes of this NFL season behind the scenes called “The NFL Season: A Biography.” The latest is about Brendon Ayanbadejo‘s fight for same-sex marriage in Maryland. It continues the growing trend we’ve been reporting on for over a year that the […]

For the better part of a decade, it’s looked an awful lot like seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong was doping. And for 10 years his fans, inspired by Armstrong’s successful fight against cancer, defended him. Unfortunately, it’s now clear that he lied to them all along, intimidated people who would testify against him, […]

Alex Rodriguez (Photo: Debby Wong-US PRESSWIRE) Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees has stunk this postseason, so badly that he was benched in the deciding Game 5 against the Orioles. He failed again in Games 1 and 2 of the ALCS against the Tigers, and this caused a torrent of homophobic abuse directed towards […]

Seimone Augustus Minnesota Lynx star and Olympic gold medalist Seimone Augustus is speaking out against the Constitutional ban on same-sex marriage headed to Minnesota voters in November (video below). Augustus is engaged to be married and says she doesn't want her state to ban her from marrying her partner, LaTaya Varner. Augustus is also in […]

The Associated Press is reporting that R&B superstar Beyonce will be the main attraction of the halftime show for Super Bowl XLVII on Feb. 3 in New Orleans. With her female following, it’s a great choice given how much the NFL is trying to attract more of a female following (who would have thought 10 […]

I’ve gotta admit, I don’t quite get DirecTV’s whole “fairy” campaign. First it was Deion Sanders with pretty wings. Now both Eli Manning and Peyton Manning have satchels of pixie dust. And into DirecTV customer’s inboxes yesterday came an invitation to Fairy Training Camp (below), where you can teach the Mannings how to throw a […]

Brendan Burke's old team reaffirms their commitment to equality on the ice