These two have broken the story about a George Washington University's transgender basketball player and posted a lengthy interview with OUT rugby stud Gareth Thomas.
“The core of what we do is cover the nexus of gays and sports,” said Cyd Zeigler, one of the Web site’s two founders. “And there is no competition... It is not about outing athletes, the site’s founders say, but supporting them, and it attracts hundreds of thousands of eyeballs every month.... Outsports has had life-changing ramifications. A year ago, Hudson Taylor was a nationally ranked wrestler at the University of Maryland and an outspoken supporter of gay rights. He is heterosexual, and he preached tolerance to teammates and wore a Human Rights Campaign sticker on his headgear, which attracted local attention...
Buzinski and Zeigler, who have never been a couple, met at a gay pride event in West Hollywood in 1996. Buzinski was manning a flag-football booth; Zeigler had friends on Buzinski’s team. They began watching N.F.L. games together on Sundays and playing football together on Saturdays. (Their flag football teams have won several Gay Bowls and championships at the Gay Games.)
They were in a coffee shop on Cape Cod in 1999 when, with Buzinski reading The Wall Street Journal and Zeigler reading Sports Illustrated, they started talking about sports and the Web.
“We’re two gay people who love sports, and we thought, ‘There is nothing on the Internet for us,’ ” Buzinski said.
Buzinski and Zeigler say that they do not know how much longer they will keep the site going, but that a raft of suicides among gay teenagers last year drove home the need for outlets like Outsports. They try to measure the lack of profit against the site’s importance to a large number of gay sports fans and a smaller group of young closeted athletes...
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