“Being able to compete with the best in the world as my most authentic self at the biggest international multi-sport games shows how far we’ve come on inclusion in sport. Thormeyer was not out when he competed at the 2016 Rio Olympics and came out publicly as gay in a 2020 essay for Outsports. “Competing at the Olympics as an openly gay athlete is pretty amazing,” Canadian swimmer Markus Thormeyer told Outsports. In contrast, Outsports counted 23 publicly out Olympians in 2012 and 56 in 2016 at those Summer Games. The rise of social media, especially Instagram, has given athletes a forum where they can live their lives openly and identify directly with their followers. The massive increase in the number of out athletes reflects the growing acceptance of LGBTQ people in sports and society. The number of publicly out LGBTQ athletes in Tokyo is also greater than the number athletes who have participated in all of the previous Olympic Games - Summer and Winter - combined while publicly out. That number of athletes who were out at the Tokyo Olympics has continued to grow.Īt least 186 publicly out gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer and nonbinary athletes were in Tokyo for the Summer Olympic Games, more than triple the number who participated at the 2016 Rio Games.
Editor’s Note: As of mid-August 2021, the total number of known LGBTQ athletes was 185.
