Pride Night at Citi Field: LGBT and Sports Culture

On August 13, the Mets will become the first major New York sports team to host an LGBT "Pride Night". LGBT Network led the charge to get Pride Night to come to Citi field and a portion of each ticket sale will go to their anti-bullying programs in New York City public schools. More than 5,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender baseball fans are expected to be in attendance. 

Sports are often an opportunity for many to learn the tenets of teamwork and competition, but for most LGBT youths, sports remains as an obstacle to understanding or acceptance of their identity. Fifteen year-old Ethan Diaz had to leave his middle school in Long Island because he was severly harassed by his classmates. "I would identify as a male-transgender. And the teachers wouldn't even let me participate in the male sports, they said I had to play sports with the females," said Diaz. 

David Kilmnick, CEO of LGBT Network, emphasized how important LGBT Pride Night at Citi Field is to changing a historically homophobic culture of sports. "Too many times at ball games, ball parks, arenas, and stadiums, people just denegrate the opposing team with anti-gay slurs and this Pride Night sends a message that all are going to be welcome and those kind of remarks are not going to be tolerated," said Kilmnick.

Ethan Diaz said, "Because the LGBT community is going to be incorporated into sports, that makes me feel more comfortable about the future. I know it's going to be hard at first for people who don't agree with it to accept. But as long as they have some idea in the back of their heads that this is a good thing at least a little bit, I feel like it's going to go somewhere."