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BREAKING BARRIERS: LGBTQ ATHLETES INFLUENCE OLYMPICS
After a high number of LGBTQ athletes participated in the 2021 Olympics, they have received both praise and pushback.
WORDS BY CARMON BAKER | ART BY AMANDA O’BRIEN
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The 2021 Summer Olympics, held in Tokyo, were not devoid of fi rsts. Most notably, the games were held without spectators after being delayed for a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, another fi rst also made headlines; there was a drastic increase in openly LGBTQ athletes competing.
According to a story by SBNation, at least 186 openly LGBTQ athletes competed at the games last summer. That’s more than three times the number of queer athletes who competed at the Rio Olympics in 2016 and also greater than the number of LGBTQ athletes who have played in all combined past Olympic games.
The Tokyo Games saw the return of prominent past Olympians who had already been out while competing at previous Olympics. For example, United States soccer player Megan Rapinoe and her fi ance, United States basketball player Sue Bird, both competed. Additionally, British diver Tom Daley, who is gay, also competed. Queer olympians like Rapinoe, Bird, and Daley have been infl uential for young athletes as they’ve taken the world stage.
“I play soccer, so one of the bigger role models or people that were representing LGBTQ was Megan Rapinoe, and she’s an advocate for LGBTQ inclusivity in sports,” Lawrence University soccer player Sydney Allen, who is a member of the LGBTQ community, said. “I mainly saw her advocating for youth, but I also saw her getting hated on a lot. I saw a lot of
politicians hating on her for her sexual identity. And it was really weird to see that because growing up, I looked up to her.”
The large increase in the number of queer athletes competing in Tokyo was partly a result of more athletes coming out recently. For example, according to a story by them., Canadian soccer midfi elder Quinn, who identifi es as nonbinary, became the fi rst openly trans athlete to both compete at the Olympics and win a medal.
Jordan Mix, Deputy Director of Education at Iowa Safe Schools, is a close follower of women’s soccer and had the chance to hear from Quinn at the organization’s Governor’s Conference in April.
“To have not only an LGBTQ athlete and not only a transgender athlete, but an athlete who says, ‘I’m competing on this women’s team because it is what is available to me, and I truly love my team, but being part of this team does not negate my experience as a non-binary individual and a person whose experience is not defi ned by quote unquote womanhood,’ I think that’s really cool and really powerful as well,” Mix said.
He also commented on how this increase in representation at the Olympics can be attributed to a variety of factors.
“I think that being able to see that representation from people just within your own social circle has really increased, which I think makes people feel empowered to continue to try to take up that space and talk about who they are and speak to the experiences that they have had in their lives in order to be their most authentic selves,” Mix said. “I think that the opportunity to do that has really increased in the last four to fi ve years, which I think has a lot to do with the ways in which athletes really felt empowered to be open about their sexual orientation or gender identity during the Tokyo Olympics.”
Mix specifi cally attributes the increase in part to the rise in social media, where new platforms such as TikTok and new Instagram features have made the LGBTQ community more accessible to the general public.
“I assume that a lot of people during the Olympics were making TikToks about the Olympics, and so to kind of get that representation in the hands of so many people so quickly and in such a digestible way is really cool,” Mix said. “I think [it] can really have a huge impact on the way young people see themselves.”
As a college student familiar with these platforms, Allen sees the increase in representation as a positive change.
SYDNEY ALLEN, LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY SOCCER PLAYER
“I think it’s good that there’s representation, but as a kid I never really saw any representation,” Allen said. “I didn’t know that most of the [United States National Women’s Soccer League Team] was part of the LGBTQ community, but I think it’s good that they’re stepping up now and being advocates because it gives LGBTQ kids more confi dence to step up and be who they are, whether it be in sports or out of sports. They’re going to advocate and they’re going to make it a better and safer world for LGBTQ kids in sports to be who they are.”
However, even amidst all the progress, queer athletes have also experienced negative eff ects and pushback. Many are now in danger in their home countries where there are laws against being queer. In addition, many athletes, especially those who identify as transgender like weighlifter Laurel Hubbard, have experienced backlash online.
Inclusion for Laurel means exclusion for [another athlete],” the blog Fair Play for Women wrote after the Olympics. “This is what trans inclusion in women’s sport means. Females get excluded from their own category.”
According to Mix, this debate has extended into other levels of sports as well, and transgender athletes are becoming a controversial topic.
“And for as much information as I’ve seen from people arguing that it’s not fair and that there are advantages for particularily transgender women to compete in sport would create unsafe or unsafe environments, I have seen a lot of really incredible information from transgender athletes, from doctors, from pediatricians, and scientists who can speak to all the reasons why that is completely not true and how there are so many other ways that we can make sure that transgender people can compete in sport and how that’s not going to be something that compromises the integrity of the competition in any way,” Mix said.
While the increased representation of LGBTQ athletes at Tokyo’s summer games demonstrates signifi cant progress, this ongoing debate serves as a reminder that there are still barriers to complete inclusivity at all levels of competitive sports.
