LGBTQ+ · Washington
Washington Renegades: A History of D.C.’s LGBTQ Rugby Club
Founded in 1998, the Washington Renegades built a rugby program in D.C. that connected local play with an international gay rugby network.
By KLGBT News Desk ·
The Washington Renegades are a rugby union club based in Washington, D.C., with teams competing in Division III and Division IV. Founded on October 24, 1998, by Mark Hertzog, the club has combined regular rugby competition with opportunities to connect with players and teams from other cities and countries.
The Renegades played their first 15s match in October 1999, facing the Roanoke Rugby Football Club. Rugby’s 15s format features the full traditional team size, while sevens tournaments use smaller lineups and a faster style of play. The club entered that shorter format the following year, traveling to London in July 2000 for a sevens tournament against teams from London and Manchester.
The club’s international connections expanded in May 2001, when it hosted its first International Rugby Invitational. The event brought teams from San Francisco, Manchester, England, and Buenos Aires to Washington. Individual players from Chicago, London, and Melbourne also attended, giving the gathering a broader reach than a single club-to-club matchup.
The Renegades later took part in the IGRAB Rugby Festival and the Mark Bingham Cup in 2002 and 2004. These events placed the Washington club within the wider international gay rugby community. The Bingham Cup takes its name from Mark Bingham, a rugby player associated with the University of California, Berkeley, and San Francisco Fog RFC who died on September 11, 2001.
Taken together, the club’s early history shows how an LGBTQ rugby organization in Washington developed through several forms of participation: local matches, travel, tournament play and hosting. Its first years included competition in both 15s and sevens, along with invitations to teams and players from North America, Europe, South America and Australia.
For Washington’s LGBTQ sports history, the Renegades offer an example of community-building through organized athletics. The club’s record links a D.C.-based team to a network that extended well beyond the region, while its invitational events made Washington a meeting place for players from that broader rugby community. The available account documents the club’s founding and early milestones through its appearances in 2002 and 2004; it does not provide a current schedule, roster or details about present-day operations.
Source and reuse information This automatically generated backgrounder adapts text from “Washington Renegades RFC” on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Renegades_RFC The adapted text is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license (CC BY-SA 4.0): https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. The source article’s linked references are provided below where available. This story has not been independently reviewed or fact-checked.
Further links listed by the Wikipedia page (not independently checked): - https://www.dcrugby.com/ - https://web.archive.org/web/20110524102144/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/access/1317029241.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=Aug+9,+2007&author=Jeff+Nelson&pub=The+Washington+Post&edition=&startpage=T.9&desc=Rugby+Players:+For+the+Love+of+the+Game,+and+a+Party - https://web.archive.org/web/20110524102246/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/access/52594873.html?dids=52594873:52594873&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=APR+13,+2000&author=Buzz+McClain&pub=The+Washington+Post&desc=Joining+in+the+Scrum%3B+On+This+Rugby+Team,+Winning+Is+the+Last+Thing&pqatl=google - https://www.theguardian.com/observer/osm/story/0,,946718,00.html Image rights Photograph description: 33rd Annual Adams Morgan Day Festival . 18th Street near Californa Street, NW, Washington DC . Sunday afternoon, 11 September 2011 . Elvert Barnes Photography Washington Renegades Rugby Football Club (RFC) dcrugby.com/ Exhibitors Series Visit Adams Morgan Day Festival at www.adamsmorgandayfestival.com/ Visit Elvert Barnes 33rd ADAMS MORGAN DAY FESTIVAL docu-project at elvertbarnes.com/33rdAMDF2011 Creator: Elvert Barnes. License: CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0). Original image page: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A37a.AMDF.WDC.11September2011_(6297658248).jpg. The image was resized for display; no other changes were made.