No less than 144 out LGBTQ athletes shall be heading to Paris for the 2024 Summer season Video games, with a document variety of out male Olympians collaborating, in accordance with the LGBTQ sports activities website OutSports.
Within the final Summer season Olympics, held in Tokyo in 2021, there have been no less than 186 out opponents, however the record initially began at 121, in accordance with OutSports co-founder Cyd Zeigler, who stated the quantity elevated because the sports activities information website grew to become conscious of extra publicly out athletes.
Zeigler stated he anticipates that the variety of out athletes on the 2024 record will develop as nicely.
“We’ve already, within the final 24 hours, heard of a couple of half dozen out athletes that we didn’t know of,” he stated. He added that the brand new additions embrace extra male athletes and shall be added to Outsports’ tally subsequent week.
Brazilian gymnast Arthur Nory Mariano is one in every of no less than 18 out male Olympians competing within the Paris Olympics. Jam Media / Getty Photos file
This 12 months, no less than 18 male athletes collaborating in the summertime Olympics are publicly out. Zeigler stated equestrian, an Olympic sport with eight LGBTQ males collaborating, has “lengthy been a pacesetter on this area of out males.”
The overwhelming majority of athletes on the record of queer Olympians, greater than 120, are ladies. Lesbians and different queer ladies symbolize no less than half of two groups: the U.S. ladies’s basketball workforce, the place six of the 12 gamers are out, and the Australian ladies’s soccer workforce, the place no less than 9 of the 18 gamers are out.
Brittney Griner is one in every of six out gamers on Workforce USA’s ladies’s basketball workforce. Barry Gossage / NBAE through Getty Photos
“Given what number of lesbians are in ladies’s elite degree sports activities, it’s simply been a extra welcoming place than males’s sports activities for a very long time, simply due to the massive proportion of elite degree athletes, notably in Western tradition, who’re LGBTQ in ladies’s sports activities,” Zeigler stated.
Nonetheless, Zeigler stated that on this planet of males’s sports activities, the place LGBTQ athletes previously may need been uncomfortable popping out, extra male athletes are realizing that their teammates are extra accepting than they might have assumed.
“That’s the most important factor that persons are lastly beginning to see, that regardless of the nonsense that goes on in some males’s locker rooms, it doesn’t replicate an precise degree of acceptance. The extent of acceptance is greater than what they assume,” he stated.
Germany’s Timo Cavelius shall be first out homosexual man to compete in Olympic judo, in accordance with Outsports.David Finch / Getty Photos file
A number of the highest profile queer athletes at this 12 months’s Olympic Video games embrace British diver Tom Daley, monitor star Sha’Carri Richardson and trans nonbinary runner Nikki Hiltz.
On the U.S. Olympic Trials final month, Hiltz punched their ticket to Paris, working the second quickest time ever of any American within the ladies’s 1,500-meter race.
In a post-race interview with NBC Sports activities, Hiltz, 29, stated the race had significance past setting the meet document.
“That is greater than simply me. … I wished to run this one for my neighborhood,” they stated. “All of the LGBT people, yeah, you guys introduced me residence that final hundred [meters]. I might simply really feel the love and assist.”
Workforce USA’s Nikki Hiltz shall be one in every of no less than three nonbinary athletes competing within the Paris Olympics.Christian Petersen / Getty Photos
Hiltz shall be one in every of no less than three nonbinary athletes collaborating in Paris, in accordance with Zeigler. They’ll be joined by U.S. ladies’s rugby participant Kris Thomas and Canadian soccer star Quinn, who helped Canada win a gold medal on the Tokyo Video games and made historical past within the course of as the primary brazenly trans athlete to nab an Olympic medal.
Whereas Zeigler stated that some individuals imagine the ban on trans ladies collaborating within the ladies’s class for sure sports activities has an impact on the variety of LGBTQ athletes on the Olympics, he stated he doesn’t imagine that the bans are affecting the general numbers.
Although the variety of out athletes on the OutSports record is ready to extend, some adjustments to the competitors is also contributing to a decrease variety of LGBTQ athletes within the competitors. The elimination of softball as an Olympic sport, a sport that had eight LGBTQ ladies on the Tokyo Video games, for instance, has had an impact on the numbers.
Really helpful
Zeigler additionally identified that the Swedish ladies’s soccer workforce, which “surprisingly” didn’t qualify for Paris, had 4 LGBTQ gamers in Tokyo.
Ladies’s soccer, throughout all collaborating international locations, is the queerest sport on the Olympics this 12 months. Brazil’s workforce has eight out athletes this 12 months, whereas Australia’s roster has 9 — which Zeigler stated “is likely to be essentially the most LGBTQ individuals we’ve ever seen on an Olympic workforce.”
For extra from NBC Out, join our weekly publication.
