Gay male olympians

His dramatic, sharp movements — and facial expressions to match—emulate those of a professional dancer, at once complementing and contradicting his smooth, unfettered movement along the ice. He hides the technical difficulty of every jump and spin with head-flips and a commanding gaze, a performer as well as an athlete.

There are gay role models at every turn — on television, on local sports, and in our communities. Even so, the last time that the United States sent an openly gay man to any Olympic Games was inwhen equestrians Guenter Seidel and Robert Dover won bronze in team dressage.

You just have to spend one day in the housing, the gyms, or at dinner to realize we're all over.

A Brief History of Openly Gay Olympians

Indeed, by the time Dover came out on the international stage, it was clear that gay athletes were competing and winning in all levels of professional sports. Seven years earlier, tennis star Billie Jean King was famously outed when a lawsuit filed by a former lover led her to publicly admit to having a lesbian affair.

King promptly lost her all her professional endorsements, but later said she only wished that she had come out sooner. But it was more than a decade earlier when an openly gay athlete first performed in the Olympic Games. Just not exactly during competition. English figure skater John Curry had barely come off the high of winning gold at the Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, when reporters caught wind of his sexuality from an article published in the International Herald Tribune.

But even though the competition was over for Curry, custom had it that medal winners were expected to appear in exhibition performances. There, in a fiery, unflinching athletic spectacle, Curry abandoned his usual lively routine of skips and hops for gay male olympians stern technical masterpiece, making him the first openly gay athlete to perform on the Olympic stage.

German runner Otto Peltzer, for instance, competed in the and Olympicsbut was arrested by the Nazis in for his homosexuality and was later sent to the concentration camps. In more recent years, athletes have waited to come out until after their time in competition was over, including figure skaters Johnny Weir and Brian Boitano and American diver Greg Louganis.

Though the early history of openly gay Olympians is dotted with male athletes, openly gay women have quietly gained prevalence in recent competitions. And now I want us to talk about tennis. All six openly gay athletes at the Winter Olympics in Vancouver were women, as were all seven of the openly gay athletes at the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

Both of the intervening Summer Olympics saw a greater turnout of openly gay athletes, but women still held the large majority. Infour of the players on the U. This accounting of course elides that sexual orientation is a spectrum. Olympians who openly identify as bisexual, for instance, are growing in number as well.

Additionally, the International Olympic Committee, and the many governing bodies gay male olympians, have made some strides when it comes to recognizing that gender is not binary, though policies for transgender athletes remain a thorny debate among officials and athletes.

That being said, the IOC allowed pre-surgery transgender athletes to take part in the Rio Games. The United States used the Olympic platform as an opportunity for subtle protest, including prominent gay athletes Brian Boitano, Billie Jean King and Caitlin Cahow in its Olympic delegation, and protests were staged across the world.

Despite the outpouring of international support, Canadian figure skater Eric Radford opted to wait until after Sochi to come out, citing his desire to be recognized for his skill, rather than his sexuality. Rippon and Kenworthy have used their newfound platforms to make statements on political issues.

Rippon recently made headlines when he refused an offer to meet with Vice President Mike Pence due to disagreements with his stances on LGBT rights — which include past statements that appear to support funding gay conversion therapy. Political platforms and sponsorships aside, Rippon and Kenworthy ultimately hoped that by coming out they could live as freer, more authentic versions of themselves — and empower others to do the same.

Zoe Sayler Read More. Zoe Sayler is an Editorial Intern at Smithsonian Magazine gay male olympians, a senior at Stanford University and a fervent supporter of women who are funny and know it. Read her work at zsayler. Figure skater Adam Rippon will be one of two openly gay Americans competing in the Winter Olympics, a first for the U.

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