Bridging The Great Gay and Lesbian Divide

Michael Corrente and Vanessa Villanova, our Commissioner, were featured in NEXT MAGAZINE in an article about gays and lesbians in NYC written by league member David Jeffries. Check out the excerpt that features BAD!

… Outside of the bars, Corrente and other heterosocial pals know that, whether gay or lesbian, they can meet up on the court or on the fields on some of New York’s gay sports leagues. Among the leagues Corrente belongs to that claim an open atmosphere is Big Apple Dodgeball (BAD). BAD’s mission is to “create an all-gay dodgeball league of balanced numbers,” according to the league’s commissioner, Vanessa Villanova.
 
The goal of the league is to sponsor teams through local LGBTQI-friendly businesses in order to encourage LGBTQI (I is for “intersex”) individuals to play dodgeball in a competitive and fun atmosphere.
 
Slowly but surely, the league has been recruiting an increasing number of women, balancing out the league’s 100 gay men.
 
“The men in our league are absolutely astounding, because they all get it,” says Villanova of the close rapport between gay and lesbian teammates. “They love the girls. They go out of their way to make the girls feel welcome. That’s something that I’m so proud of, because there are not that many spaces where you can throw a bunch of lesbians into the mix and get such a warm reception.”
 
Villanova predicts that with a league like BAD, starting with 60 people and now pushing 18 different teams of 200, equal numbers of gay men and lesbians can be achieved. If that happens, Big Apple Dodgeball would be the first league in New York to achieve a balanced number of gay men and lesbians all playing together on each other’s teams. “We are constantly changing but always attracting the same type of people, and that’s what we want to maintain,” she says. Not surprisingly, both Gym Sportsbar and Cubbyhole are sponsors of BAD.

Read the whole article here.