Topline
Beijing 2022 has the highest number of openly LGBTQ+ competitors at a Winter Olympic Games ever, including its first nonbinary athlete, hot on the heels of a record-setting Games in Tokyo last summer at a time when China’s government has cracked down on the community.
Record numbers of out LGBTQ+ athletes are set to compete in Beijing 2022
Key Facts
There are at least 35 openly LGBTQ+ athletes competing at the Beijing 2022 Games, according to Outsports, more than double the number at PyeongChang, South Korea, in 2018 (15) and five times the number at Sochi, Russia, in 2014 (7).
The athletes—representing 15 countries—will compete in nine different sports, including ice hockey (12), figure skating (10), skeleton (3), skiing (3) and snowboarding (2).
With at least seven out players, Canada’s women’s ice hockey team is sending more openly LGBT+ athletes to Beijing than any other country is for its total delegation (it is also sending two out figure skaters and one biathlete), with the U.S. (6) and Great Britain (4) sending the second and third most, respectively.
Team USA figure skater Timothy LeDuc will make history as the first openly nonbinary athlete to compete in the Winter Olympic Games, where they will partner with Ashley Can-Gribble in the figure skating pairs.
Dutch speedskater Ireen Wüst, who is openly bisexual and the event’s most decorated Olympian, will compete in her fifth consecutive Games having won gold medals in Turin, Vancouver, Sochi and PyeongChang.
Skier Gus Kenworthy—who came out as gay after winning silver in Sochi—is representing Great Britain, defecting from Team USA after two Games.
Key Background
Beijing 2022 comes shortly after a record-breaking 186 openly LGBTQ+ athletes took part in the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics last summer. This included the very first openly nonbinary and transgender athletes in the history of the Games, one of whom—Quinn, a transgender and nonbinary soccer player on Canada’s women’s soccer team—won a gold medal. The record number of out athletes competing in Beijing stands against an increasingly oppressive environment for LGBTQ+ people in China, including an online crackdown of social media accounts and the abrupt cancellation of the country’s only major pride event in Shanghai. Queer dating app Grindr was removed from the iPhone App Store days before the Games were due to start, something the company said was to comply with Chinese data protection laws but which sparked fears the app was targeted for its demographic.
Surprising Fact
At the Sochi 2014 Winter Games in Russia, U.S. figure skater-turned-commentator Johnny Weir secretly hosted part of a documentary about LGBTQ+ olympic athletes, To Russia With Love. The summer before the Games, Russia banned the promotion of “non-traditional” sexuality, widely interpreted as an anti-LGBTQ+ law.
What To Watch For
Covid isolation. Belgian skeleton racer Kim Meylemans posted a plea for help on Instagram after testing positive for Covid-19 and being taken to an isolation facility outside the Olympic village. Meylemans, who is openly lesbian, has since been freed and will need to undergo seven days of testing before she can be released from an isolation wing, less time than the 14 days required at the other facility and allowing her to potentially compete.
Further Reading
Here Are The First Openly Transgender And Nonbinary Olympians Making History In Tokyo (Forbes)
Here’s How China Repurposed 2008 Summer Olympic Venues For The Winter Games (Photos) (Forbes)
10 Things You Didn’t Know, Or Forgot, About The Beijing Olympics That Have Nothing To Do With Triple Axels (Forbes)
At least 35 out LGBTQ athletes in Beijing Winter Olympics, a record (Outsports)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2022/02/03/record-numbers-of-openly-lgbtq-athletes-will-compete-at-beijing-2022—including-first-openly-nonbinary-winter-olympian/