A record 34 LGBTQ athletes will represent their countries at the 2022 Winter Olympics taking place this month in China
BY ORLY LYONNE
The 2022 Winter Olympics started this month, and there will be a minimum of 34 athletes competing in nine different sports over the three week-long festivities in Beijing, China that are part of the LGBTQ community, reports Juwan J. Holmes at LGBTQ Nation. That’s the most ever in Winter Olympics history, beating the 15 out athletes recorded at the 2018 Games.
Team USA will have six out athletes among their 222 named squad members, including three on the figure skating team. They will send the second most out athletes to the Winter Olympics, following Canada with 10.
Out of the 34 known to be part of the LGBTQ community and competing in Beijing starting this week, 11 are men—the most, since there hadn’t been any men that competed while out at the Winter Olympics prior to Gus Kenworthy, Adam Rippon, and Eric Radford in 2018. 22 of the out competitors are women, and one—Timothy LeDuc—is non-binary.
Photo: Wikipedia Commons
Kenworthy and Radford are returning for their second straight Games while out, in addition to out athletes Brittany Bowe, Belle Brockhoff, Daniela Iraschko-Stolz, Kim Meylemans, Sarka Pancochova, and Ireen Wüst, who are also returning for yet another Olympics. Rippon and Hendrikx—who competed at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada—are returning as coaches, reports LGBTQ Nation.
Team USA’s out athletes will include LeDuc, Jason Brown, and reserve member Amber Glenn on the figure skating squad. Alex Carpenter will compete in ice hockey, Andrew Blaser in skeleton ice skating, and Bowe in speedskating.
Multiple human rights activists and advocacy groups are against holding the upcoming Olympics and other sports events in anti-LGBTQ areas or countries with questionable human rights records.
Officially, the United States government has enacted a diplomatic boycott of China for the Olympics, meaning they will not send any non-athlete representatives of the country to appear at the Games. Although athletes are allowed to compete as normal, China’s foreign ministry and Chinese media are already accusing Team USA athletes of planning to “sabotage” the Winter Olympics by going as far to “even refuse to take part” in events—proving that political issues will remain an issue at these Games as they did at previous ones.
China considers LGBTQ activists to be political dissidents and subjects them to surveillance, harassment and imprisonment. The country lacks marriage equality as well as LGBTQ non-discrimination protections.
