PARIS– A record number of athletes who openly identify as LGBTQ+ are competing in the 2024 Paris Olympics, a huge leap forward during a competition that organizers have been pushing to focus on inclusion and diversity.
There are 191 athletes who publicly say they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and non-binary participating in the Games, according to Outsports, an organization that compiles a database of openly queer Olympic athletes. The vast majority of athletes are women.
That number wiped out the previous record of 186 eliminated athletes counted in the COVID-19 delayed event. Tokyo Olympics held in 2021, and the count is expected to only grow in future Olympics.
“More and more people are coming out,” said Jim Buzinski, co-founder of Outsports. “They realize it’s important to have visibility because there’s no other way to get representation.”
The number of people willing to stand out as LGBTQ+ Olympians has skyrocketed in recent decades. Buzinski said when they started tracking numbers from the 2000 Sydney Olympics, they only counted about five people.
Organizers of the Paris Olympics highlighted diversity and inclusion as key themes, featuring drag queens and refugee athletes in Friday opening ceremony. who received some Reaction from religious conservatives.
“We all belong to our Olympic world,” said Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, in a speech during the opening ceremony.
Because of this and Paris’ reputation as the “City of Love,” Buzinski and LGBTQ+ advocates see the Paris Games as an opportunity for athletes from parts of the world where competitors cannot be openly gay due to harsh population restrictions. queer. .
“Coming to Paris, coming to France, they are able to be themselves,” said Jérémy Goupille, co-president of Pride House at the Paris Olympics.
Pride House, which debuted at the 2010 Olympics, is located on a boat floating on the River Seine and will feature live music and speeches from Olympic organizers when it opens on Monday night.
Goupille said safety concerns still remain for many athletes. Dating apps like Grindr, Bumble and Tinder have long been used as shields for gay athletes who want to connect with other queer people in the countries where they compete but don’t want to feel publicly exposed.
But he said that at previous Games, some tried to expose athletes who were not officially excluded by checking people’s heights, weights and locations on these apps.
Because of this, Grindr announced that in Paris they have disabled location-based features in the Olympic village where athletes stay and other official Games areas, saying this would allow LGBTQ+ athletes to connect “authentically, without worrying about stares.” indiscreet or unwanted attention.”
The app made the same decision for the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
“If an athlete is not out or comes from a country where being LGBTQ+ is dangerous or illegal, using Grindr may put them at risk of being discovered by curious individuals who may try to identify and expose them on the app,” he said. Grindr in a statement. declaration.
The deactivation of these features was met with some criticism on social media last week after some users reported problems accessing the app in the Olympic Village.
“You have to protect them because there are a lot of bad people. At the same time, there are so many beautiful athletes,” Goupille said. “They want to meet someone and it’s difficult.”
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