A record-breaking number of openly LGBTQ athletes are taking center stage at the 2024 Paris Olympics, with 195 out competitors at this year’s Games. This marks a significant increase from previous years, with at least 186 out athletes competing at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, 56 at Rio in 2016 and 23 in 2012 at the London Games, according to Outsports.
By stepping onto the world stage as their true selves, many Olympians are challenging stereotypes and inspiring millions of young athletes who feel unseen, said Billie Jean King, legendary tennis star and LGBTQ activist.
“Sports are a microcosm of our society,” King told Yahoo Entertainment. She credits the number of queer athletes competing in Paris to a global shift toward LGBTQ acceptance. “It is so important for young people to see this progress and identify with athletes who look like them and live like they want to live.”
“It’s a signal to all those kids that sport is a safe place for queer identity, and that sport is for everyone,” Olympic skier Gus Kenworthy told Yahoo Entertainment. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.”
Kenworthy became the first openly gay Olympic skier when he came out in 2015. He won a silver medal at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, where queer athletes were forced to stay closeted due to Russia’s anti-LGBTQ law banning gay “propaganda,” which included the waving of rainbow flags.
Sochi “took a toll on me psychologically,” Kenworthy said.
“I found myself lying in all the interviews right after the medal,” he explained. “There were a lot of questions about my personal life, celebrity crushes and dream dates, and I just suddenly felt like I was not lying by omission, but I was just lying.”
That changed in 2018 when a photo of Kenworthy kissing his then boyfriend at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, went viral. It was then that he realized visibility wasn’t just personal.
“Being out at the Olympics was honestly such a dream come true,” he said. “I felt such a weight off my shoulders.”
Out at the 2024 Paris Olympics
As of Aug. 7, approximately 27 out athletes have won a medal at the Paris Olympics, per Outsports, and the list is still building. They include openly bisexual sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson, runner Nico Young, boxer Cindy Ngamba, and fencer Lauren Scruggs, among others.
But LGBTQ visibility extends beyond competition, sportswriter and Outsports co-founder Cyd Zeigler told Yahoo Entertainment. Watching athletes celebrate wins with their friends, family and teammates may also dispel misconceptions about queer acceptance in sports.
“For generations, gay, bi and trans people have felt marginalized in sports or completely rejected,” Zeigler said. “[Visibility] is particularly important to the LGBTQ+ athletes from the 170 countries with no out athletes.”
There have been a number of LGBTQ moments at the Olympics worth celebrating.
Team USA rugby star Alev Kelter proposed to her girlfriend on Aug. 5, days after she led the U.S. to a bronze medal win. Australian sports climber Campbell Harrison was seen kissing his partner after competing.
Italy’s Alice Bellandi kissed her girlfriend after winning a gold medal in judo on Aug. 1.
Context: after winning gold medal in judo today, Italian Alice Bellandi went hug her family and the first thing she did was kiss her girlfriend on (inter)national TV 🤍 pic.twitter.com/EXIfkJ6J2c
— Jade⸆⸉ (@truegraceland) August 1, 2024
British diver Tom Daley’s husband, Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, and their two sons were seen cheering from the stands as Daley won a silver medal in the men’s synchronized 10-meter platform on July 29.
Throughout the Games, Daley has been carrying a rainbow towel.
LGBTQ voices are represented among commentators as well, with former Team USA gymnast Laurie Hernandez, who’s been dating fellow gymnast Charlotte Drury since 2020, gaining fans for her spirited commentary during NBC’s live coverage.
NBCU executive vice president and chief diversity officer Craig Robinson told Yahoo Entertainment that LGBTQ visibility was “vitally important” when planning the network’s live coverage of the Games this year.
“It’s great to see the Olympics carrying the torch on this matter,” Lucas Keller, openly gay founder of Milk & Honey, a leading sports agency representing athletes in MLB and the NFL, told Yahoo Entertainment. “I’d like to see more acceptance and athletes being more comfortable coming out in mainstream American sports.”
In the history of the big four U.S. sports leagues (NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB), only three players have been openly LGBTQ while active on teams: the NBA’s Jason Collins in 2013, and the NFL’s Michael Sam in 2014 as well as Carl Nassib, who in 2021 became the only out NFL player to play a game, according to Outsports. Nassib retired from the sport last year.
With Nassib’s retirement in 2023, there is currently no openly LGBTQ player in any of the big four sports leagues.
“Queer representation at the Olympics and in sports coverage is crucial,” said R.K. Russell, former NFL player who came out as bisexual in 2019, which he called a “liberating experience.”
“It freed me from the doubt that I didn’t belong in the world of sports as a bisexual man or that I didn’t belong in the hypermasculine sport of football,” Russel said of coming out. “When young athletes see someone like them competing at the highest levels, it can change their lives.”
Bill May, a synchronized swimming champion in the 1990s, came out of retirement once he heard that men would be allowed to compete in artistic swimming at the 2024 Paris Olympics (it was previously a women-only event). Though no male competitors qualified in the sport for the Games, May, who is gay, hopes he inspired other queer athletes to never give up on their dreams.
“It is a wonderful opportunity for the LGBTQ+ athletes and supporters to use that platform to promote the strength and love of our community through examples of perseverance,” he said of the Olympics.
CeCe Telfer, the first transgender woman to win an NCAA title, was unable to compete in the Paris Olympics due to last-minute eligibility requirements for trans women athletes. She hopes to compete in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, stressing that “solidarity and allyship” have made it possible for athletes like her to come out.
“The progress we’ve made in terms of queer and trans inclusion in sports has been possible not just because of the courage of individual athletes, but also because of the support from allies,” she told Yahoo Entertainment. “We still have significant work ahead to ensure that all athletes, and all women regardless of their gender identity, can compete fairly and without fear of discrimination.”
Others, like trans male skier Jay Riccomini, said seeing healthy examples of out and proud athletes makes him feel less alone.
“I was willing to completely give up skiing if I couldn’t be my true self,” he explained of coming out in 2021. “I received so much love and support from all my peers and discovered a whole other side of the community.”
Isaac Humphries, Australian basketballer and former NBA player, came out in 2022, becoming the only active openly gay male professional basketball player in a top-tier league in the world. He believes the Olympics are heading in the right direction.
“Normalizing gay athletes in such a vastly respected international competition is a huge step forward in the greater goal that we as open athletes around the world are trying to achieve,” he said. “You can be gay or queer and hold the same value as anyone else in the sporting world.”
Conor McDermott-Mostowy, U.S. speed skating champion and 2026 Olympics hopeful, recalled having no gay role models growing up. He hopes that can change.
“It’s difficult to believe you can reach the Olympics, let alone the podium, when you don’t see anyone like you there,” he said. “The only way to inspire queer kids to chase Olympic dreams is to show them that those dreams are achievable.”
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