Now she says she understands the entire problem has been the jellyfish all along (she talks about it in a video after the jump), and she’s figuring out, with the help of various companies, how to protect herself from those.

While these swims are starting to feel a little bit like the boy who cried wolf, we have to praise Nyad for not letting go of her dream. Too often people accept rejection and setbacks on the first try. Nyad won’t be stopped, which is a testament to her character.

We’ll again follow her in this crusade and hope she finally completes her dream of 34 years.

You can follow Nyad’s quest on Twitter.

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“Lisa Howe knows first-hand how it is to come out in the work place and suffer discrimination because of sexual orientation,” said Nashville GLBT Chamber of Commerce President Michael Fluck. “After a national search we are pleased to announce that she is the first ever full time executive director for the Nashville GLBT Chamber of Commerce. She has a passion for workplace equality that can’t be matched and is the perfect fit as our new executive director.”

Since being fired, Howe has not been shy with her efforts to shed light on homophobia in sports and in the work place. This does seem like a potential great fit for both parties. Good luck, Lisa!

Hat tip to Helen Carroll.

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Are they not wanting me to come to the Australian Open? Is that what they are trying to do? I don’t run from anything.

I have always been a champion and always loved what I do and love tennis. I think it is very sad they can bring it into that. It is hard that they can voice their opinions but I am not allowed to voice my opinion. There is something wrong somewhere.

We live in a free society and I stand up for families between a husband and a wife. I won’t ever back down on that.

It drives me crazy when people claim free-speech rights when someone else criticizes them. No one said you didn’t have the right to stand up for whatever you want, Maggie! But people can bloody well say you’re wrong, too!

One thing I hadn’t caught before: Margaret says she now converts gay people to become heterosexual:

We have them in our church. I help them to overcome. We have people who have been homosexual who are now married.

Wow, she really does hate us! And no, sorry, she doesn’t get to hide behind the bullshit “love the sinner, hate the sin.” When you’re converting people to be something they are not, you’re hating the person.

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The lawsuit claims that the coaches:

1. Called Skye to a fake team meeting
2. Locked Skye in the locker room alone with the coaches
3. Berated Skye about being a lesbian and accused her of spreading gossip about one of the coaches being lesbian
4. Called Skye’s mother to the school and outed Skye to her mother
5. Kicked Skye off the softball team

The School district is mounting a full defense of the coaches’ actions claiming that they followed school policy by outing Skye.

Get the full story from Griffin at her blog.

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In 2011 alone, Griffin launched GLSEN’s Changing the Game project, which is bringing tools to end homophobia in sports directly into K-12 sports programs; Carroll, who heads up NCLR’s sports project, has taken a lead roll on the project’s advisory board. Together the women published what has become the NCAA’s de facto policy on trans-athlete participation. Their behind-the-scenes work is unparalleled in this world; Much of what happened in 2011 can be traced in some way to the work these two women did in previous years. And their guidance to us here at Outsports has been invaluable.

The dynamic duo won by the proverbial landslide, garnering 53% of the vote, a testament to their work in what has been dubbed the “gayest year in sports.” High School bloggers and ‘It Gets Better’ teams tied for second with 11% each. Rick Welts and the Golden State Warriors, who together executed what might have been the single-most important moment of the year, earned 10%. Sean Avery received 9% of the vote, and Anton Hysen got 7%.

Thanks to all of our  nominees for an incredible year, and thanks to our readers for sharing their thoughts and votes!

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Baltimore Ravens fullback Vonta Leach, who was just selected to the Pro Bowl, quickly retweeted Vilma:

It’s hard to think Vilma and Leach are not including gay men in the crosshairs of Vilma’s rant. When a Tweeter named Zumbawithchris Tweeted to Vilma, “Just read what you said, and then consider how a gay man might feel. Consider how women might feel,” Vilma’s response was pretty telling:

In one of my brief conversations with former Saints linebacker Scott Fujita, he talked about heated conversations in the locker room about gay issues. I have to believe after that Tweet Fujita was mixing it up with a not-too-worldly Jonathan Vilma.

At the very least, Vilma’s comments are terribly sexist, nasty and mean. All while the NFL is desperately trying to draw in more female fans.

We know a couple gay Saints fans in New Orleans who may prefer sex with men, but they are the furthest guys from “female tendencies” I can think of. I wonder what he’d say to their faces.

Hat tip to Robert Francis.

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It raises a big question: Should boys be allowed to play on girls teams? And is that answer different when you’re talking about individual sports like swimming and track versus team sports like basketball and field hockey?

To be clear, we’re not talking about transgender athletes here. There are steps, including surgery and hormone treatments, a MTF trans athlete can take to participate as a female. These boys haven’t taken those steps.

I feel badly for everyone involved. One coach talked about a girl who lost out on a state championship years ago because she was beaten by a boy. And you know the boy must hear about it in school. But if a boy doesn’t have a male team at his high school, should he skip the sport all together? Is that fair?

Tough issue.

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Joe Paterno describes the current “tragedy”  at Penn State as “…one of the great sorrows of my life.”

He should add to that list the devastating harm he did in protecting women’s basketball coach Rene Portland while she blatantly discriminated against the women on her team who she presumed were lesbian. She was public about her practices until 1992 when Penn State included sexual orientation in their non-descrimination policy.

Apparently that didn’t stop Portland. In 2005 Jennifer Harris, a star player for the Lady Lions, was dismissed from the team. She charged Rene Portland, Tim Curley and Penn State with discrimination based on her perceived sexual orientation. Penn State tried to wiggle out of it saying that their non-discrimination policy was not a legal document. The case was settled in 2007. The film Training Rules depicts the 27 years that  Portland was able to wreak havoc on the lives of so many of her players while Paterno and the university did absolutely nothing to stop her.

You can reach Yacker via email.

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Savoy Howe, first lesbian in boxing

Imagine gay athletes having to wear pink tutus when they play, or a black athlete being forced to wear a do-rag when they participate. That’s what the Amateur International Boxing Association is trying to do with women, floating the idea that women may soon have to wear skirts in the ring. Women have long worn shorts, just like the men. According to the BBC:

AIBA asked boxers to trial the skirts, which they said would allow spectators to distinguish them from men, but at last week’s European Championships in Rotterdam only two nations – Poland and Romania – had taken on the alternative outfits.

Distinguish them from the men? Who’s confused? The difference between men and women is pretty clear. And even if it weren’t, what’s the need to distinguish them? They’re not boxing against one another. And if you sit down at a female boxing match you know…it’s a female boxing match.

Some great strides have been made recently in the sport. The Olympic Games in 2012 will include female boxing for the first time. But Helen Carroll, head of the National Center for Lesbian Rights sports project, says this is blatant sexism:

This is the most flagrant example of sexism in sports, especially on an international scale, that I have seen in years.  To say that a woman boxer must wear a skirt to be able to tell the difference in the ring between men boxers and women boxers is completely untruthful and absurd.  Let’s recognize what is truly happening in this situation.  Coaches and organizations often promote an ultra-feminization of strong women in sport to market women as sex objects instead of great athletes and to  attempt an image of no lesbians, bisexual or transgender athletes in sport.  Let me ask you, “Who REALLY wants to see a woman box in a skirt?”  The answer to that question tells it all.

It’s one thing to make the skirt an option for athletes; I’m all for putting more decisions in the hands of the athletes. But to force a uniform change on athletes who have been participating in shorts all their lives is horribly sexist.

Hat tip to Helen Carroll.

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Salina Sychla (left) controls the ball in Denver.

Gay Bowl XI in Houston had several firsts. The Toronto Mounties made the tournament “international;” The final day of competition was canceled due to a rare, freak storm. But the source of deepest pride for the members of the Denver Summit 2 was their claim to fame: They were the first team to win a game in the tournament with a female quarterback, beating the Philadelphia Revolution in round-robin play.

It wasn’t any surprise to Salina Sychla. She’s been playing quarterback since her junior high school days in Eagle Point, Oregon. Playing tackle football, she felt some of the guys would take cheap shots at her during the game: Losing to a female QB, as some of them did, often didn’t go over well.

“Football’s always been a man’s game,” she says. “To have women come in and compete with them is possibly humbling and possibly a shock.”

When she hit ninth grade, her high school was opposed to having a woman on the football team, let alone play quarterback. At the time it wasn’t a fight she wanted to have, so she stopped playing football. It was years later in college when she found intramural flag football at the College of the Siskiyous, and then the University of Wyoming.
Now she’s a star in the Denver Gay & Lesbian Flag Football League, having already led her team to a league championship.

The biggest advantage of being a female quarterback seems to be the lack of respect her competition shows for her ability. Defensive backs will play shallow, assuming she can’t throw very far.

“I get a couple deep ones off and they learn,” Sychla says.

That was the case at Gay Bowl XI, as teams who weren’t aware of her skills lined up against her. Sychla says she had an “absolute blast” at the tournament. “Every team was very nice and had a lot of very nice things to say.”

Still, Sychla laments the lack of women in the tournament. Denver brought a couple female players; Molly Lenore is a longtime fixture on the New York Warriors roster. But the number of different women who’ve played in the Gay Bowl in its 11 years of existence number only around a dozen.

“There are a lot of women who could compete, and it would be interesting to see more of them get involved in future years,” Sychla says.

Denver hosts the Gay Bowl next year and has mandated the first-ever women’s division for the event. Sychla hasn’t decided whether she’ll play in the women’s division or the men’s division. If she opts for the latter, she’ll be aiming for the quarterback position of Denver’s first team, a position she says she can win.

You can find Sychla on Facebook.

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