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Beijing Winter Olympics end with 8 medals for Out athletes

The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing concluded Sunday but China’s ongoing abuses of human rights did not go unnoticed

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2 years ago

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Closing Ceremonies of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing (Screenshot via Sky Sport NZ)

BEIJING – The 2022 Winter Olympics concluded Sunday in Beijing with another colorful ceremony, a success for the organizers’ “closed loop” tactic to control and limit COVID-19 exposure and historic wins for several out LGBTQ athletes, including two Americans. But China’s ongoing abuses of human rights and oppression of its citizens’ sexual orientations and gender identities did not go unnoticed. 

Gus Kenworthy Slams Into Wall, Then Slams IOC

One of the most famous Olympians, whose kiss of his boyfriend was seen ‘round the world four years ago, left Beijing without a medal, with some bruises and harsh words for both China and the International Olympic Committee.  

Out skier Gus Kenworthy survived a heartstopping run on the men’s freeski halfpipe Saturday, and told reporters after competition “It was a tough, tough day to do this,” Yahoo! reported. 

Kenworthy said that despite his eighth place finish, he was proud to have competed, but criticized China and the IOC, according to the Guardian. 

“I am absolutely a fan of the Olympics,” Kenworthy said. “I also think, that being said, because it’s the world stage and everyone is watching, there is an opportunity to create positive change and the IOC could help dictate that change by pushing on certain issues. Those issues are human rights issues.”

British-born Kenworthy, who holds dual citizenry in the U.S. and U.K. and competed for Great Britain, lifted his jacket to reveal a shirt proclaiming he was “Openly British.” He had told previously reporters how important it was to be openly gay, too. “Honestly, it means the world to me to get to compete here as an out proud gay man and to know that there are other out LGBTQ athletes that are here competing,” he told Reuters.

“When there’s human rights and the country’s stance on LGBT, those issues should be taken into consideration by the IOC,” said Kenworthy. 

TeamLGBTQ

Outsports, which has been tracking the out Olympians since before these games began, recorded a total of eight medals for what it dubbed TeamLGBTQ, enough to be ranked 12th overall if they were counted as a separate entry among the 91 nations participating. There were 36 out athletes among the 2,871 in Beijing, the site reported. That’s a new record, even though it’s a far smaller number than the historic showing of 186 out athletes who took part in the Summer Games.

Gold Medalists

The latest medalist taking home gold is out gay skier Sandra Näeslund of Sweden, who is not only the number one skier in the world but the first gold medalist in women’s ski cross who isn’t from Canada, reported ESPN. 

“I am so incredibly proud and grateful!” Näeslund said about the win in a post on Instagram, in which she also thanked her girlfriend and her family in her native language. “I am very proud of how I completed the competition, how I rode with confidence, focus and calm throughout the competition day,” she wrote in Swedish. “I rode stably and fast as I did all season even on that day when it mattered most!”

“Grateful to everyone who has been with and somehow helped me on my journey,” she added. “I have the world’s finest family and girlfriend who support and stand up no matter what.”

Other LGBTQ gold medalists include at least seven players on the Canadian women’s ice hockey team who are openly LGBTQ, making it the gayest Winter Olympic team of all time: Brianne Jenner, Emily Clark, Erin Ambrose, Melodie Daoust, Jamie Lee Rattray, Jill Saulnier and Micah Zandee-Hart; Guillaume Cizeron of France, with ice dancing partner Gabriela Papadakis; and bisexual Ireen Wüst of the Netherlands for speed skating. She also took home a bronze medal. 

Silver Medalist Bruce Mouat

Out gay British curler Bruce Mouat was the final LGBTQ medalist in Beijing, reported Outsports. He returns to Great Britain with Team GB’s second medal, a silver, after an oh-so-close loss to Sweden when their gold medal final went to the curling equivalent of overtime or extra innings, called an extra end. 

“I’m extremely proud of them all, we obviously wanted a different result, but every hour that’s passing we’re feeling better about having this medal around our necks,” Mouat told the BBC. I’m standing with four guys that I’m so proud of.”

Out Olympian Alex Carpenter and her Team USA ice hockey teammates won their fourth Olympic silver medal.

Bronze Medalist Brittany Bowe

Also last week, American speedskater Brittany Bowe of Ocala, Fla. took home her first individual Olympic medal. Bowe made headlines even before the Winter Games began by representing Team USA as the only out LGBTQ flag bearer at the opening ceremony, and by giving up her spot in the 500-meter race to teammate and fellow Floridian Erin Jackson, who slipped and finished third in the qualifers last month. 

Jackson went on to win gold in Beijing, becoming the first Black woman gold medalist in the sport, and thanked Bowe for the opportunity in a post on Instagram. 

On Thursday, Bowe recorded a 1:14.61 time in the 1,000 meter race to finish just under a second and a half slower than Japanese gold medalist Miho Takagi, and take home bronze, as Insider reported. Bowe congratulated Takagi and silver medalist Jutta Leerdam of the Netherlands in her own post on Instagram. Bowe regularly posts photos of her girlfriend there. 

Finland’s women’s hockey team won its second consecutive bronze medal in women’s ice hockey, with out player Ronja Savolainen playing a big role, reported Outsports.

Showing Pride

TeamUSA’s Andrew Blaser was the first out gay man to compete in skeleton at the Olympics, and although his team did not take home a medal, he did find a way around the IOC’s ban on political statements with a rainbow saddle given to him by a teammate. 

Medal Count

Overall, Norway won the most medals, 37, with an overwhelming 16 gold. Germany and China followed, and although the U.S. won ten more medals than China, TeamUSA finished fourth because it only won 8 gold to China’s 9. You can see the entire list here.

COVID-19

As Yahoo! reported, 67K screening tests were conducted on Friday, and resulted in zero positives, according to Olympics officials. The IOC proclaimed its “closed loop lock down” strategy a huge success. Organizers conducted 1.7M tests, including nearly 14K tests at the Beijing airport on incoming arrivals, and reported a total of 436 positive cases. 

What was lost, according to sports journalist Jay Busbee, was what he called the “finest trait” of the Olympic Games: “the ability for cultures to mix and mingle, to learn from one another, not hide behind petty fears, biases and preconceptions,” he wrote. “Athletes stick with athletes, journalists with journalists, and nobody really gets to know the people of China, since we’re all confined behind fences and bus windows. The closed loop has turned this Olympics from a cultural milestone into a carousel: hotel-media-center-venue-media center-hotel, repeat for 18 days.” 

Snubbed

And that limitation could be one reason why NBC once again snubbed the 36 LGBTQ Olympians, hardly ever spotlighting our heroes’ orientations and identities as significant. “It’s now an Olympic tradition,” Outsports pointed out. One of the few exceptions: Commentator and Olympic gold medalist Tara Lipinski corrected herself and apologized for misgendering TeamUSA figure skater Timothy LeDuc, the first-ever nonbinary Winter Olympian. Their team’s website needs a correction, too, by the way; It still lists LeDuc as “male.”  

Next Up

The next Summer Games will be held in Paris in 2024 and the next Winter Games are set for Italy’s Milano Cortina in 2026.

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Sports

Brittney Griner, wife expecting first child

WNBA star released from Russian gulag in December 2022

Published

7 days ago

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April 16, 2024

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Cherelle and Brittney Griner are expecting their first child in July. The couple shared the news on Instagram. (Photo courtesy of Brittney Griner's Instagram page)

One year after returning to the WNBA after her release from a Russian gulag and declaring, “I’m never playing overseas again,” Phoenix Mercury star Brittney Griner and her wife announced they have something even bigger coming up this summer. 

Cherelle, 31, and Brittney, 33, are expecting their first child in July. The couple shared the news with their 715,000 followers on Instagram. 

“Can’t believe we’re less than three months away from meeting our favorite human being,” the caption read, with the hashtag, #BabyGrinerComingSoon and #July2024.

Griner returned to the U.S. in December 2022 in a prisoner swap, more than nine months after being arrested in Moscow for possession of vape cartridges containing prescription cannabis.

In April 2023, at her first news conference following her release, the two-time Olympic gold medalist made only one exception to her vow to never play overseas again: To return to the Summer Olympic Games, which will be played in Paris starting in July, the same month “Baby Griner” is due. “The only time I would want to would be to represent the USA,” she said last year. 

Given that the unrestricted free agent is on the roster of both Team USA and her WNBA team, it’s not immediately clear where Griner will be when their first child arrives. 

The Griners purchased their “forever home” in Phoenix just last year.

“Phoenix is home,” Griner said at the Mercury’s end-of-season media day, according to ESPN. “Me and my wife literally just got a place. This is it.”

As the Los Angeles Blade reported last December, Griner is working with Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts — like Griner, a married lesbian — on an ESPN television documentary as well as a television series for ABC about her life story. Cherelle is executive producer of these projects. 

Next month, Griner’s tell-all memoir of her Russian incarceration will be published by Penguin Random House. It’s titled “Coming Home” and the hardcover hits bookstores on May 7.

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Applause and criticism for Staley’s trans-inclusive stance

South Carolina Gamecocks women’s coach made comments on Sunday

Published

2 weeks ago

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April 9, 2024

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South Carolina Gamecocks women's basketball head coach Dawn Staley. (NBC News Today YouTube screenshot)

If not for a conservative transphobic blogger, this moment should be a celebration of NCAA women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley and the women of the South Carolina Gamecocks.

On Sunday, they concluded their undefeated season with a decisive win and a championship title. But when Staley faced reporters before that big game, Outkick’s Dan Zakheske asked her an irrelevant, clickbait question about transgender women in sports, referring to them as “biological males.” 

Staley could have ignored the question, or stated she had no opinion, but instead the legendary coach offered a crystal clear endorsement of trans women competing in women’s sports, something outlawed in her home state of South Carolina for girls in kindergarten through college. 

“I’m of the opinion,” said Staley, “If you’re a woman, you should play. If you consider yourself a woman and you want to play sports or vice versa, you should be able to play. That’s my opinion.”

Zakheske clearly wasn’t satisfied with that declaration of allyship and Staley swiftly cut him off. 

“You want me to go deeper?” she asked. 

“Do you think transgender women should be able to participate,” he started to say, when the coach stole the ball and took it downtown on a fastbreak. “That’s the question you want to ask? I’ll give you that. Yes. Yes. So, now the barnstormer people are going to flood my timeline and be a distraction to me on one of the biggest days of our game, and I’m okay with that. I really am.” 

Staley is herself a Hall of Fame player a leading voice for diversity. 

Reaction to her comments were swift, from LGBTQ rights organizations, athletes and inclusion opponents. 

“Coach Staley simply spoke the truth that trans women are women and should play if they want,” said Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of GLAAD, in a post on Instagram. “All of us can take a page from Coach Staley’s playbook as a sports leader and as a person of high integrity guided by faith, compassion and common sense.” 

A White House pool reporter revealed President Joe Biden called Staley Sunday evening to congratulate her and the Gamecocks on their championship win. But it’s not clear if she and the president, an outspoken supporter of trans rights, discussed her remarks on trans athletes. 

A number of Black leaders in the LGBTQ movement applauded Staley for taking a stand. 

“Coach Staley has always been a trailblazer, but she’s also shown that true leadership is about advancing justice and equality for everyone,” said Human Rights Campaign President Kelley Robinson. “By expressing her full-throated support for transgender athletes’ inclusion in sports, she’s sending an important message — our shared humanity matters. 

“Coach Staley showed courage and vulnerability, in choosing to answer the question and make a powerful statement of support for trans people on one of the biggest days and biggest stages in sports history,” said Kierra Johnson, executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, in a statement. “Not only does that make her a leader we can all aspire to like, it makes her a class act. She has etched her legacy in the history books with her play, her coaching, her heart and her smarts.”

In congratulating Staley on her championship title victory, Dr. David J. Johns, the CEO and executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition, also commended her for “her unwavering advocacy and support for transgender people in sports.” 

“In a time when transgender athetes face unjust scrutiny, discrimination and exclusion from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, her courage to speak truth to power and in support of inclusion and fairness sets a powerful example for us all, and is a testament to her integrity and compassion.”

The NBJC leader was referring to Monday’s announcement by the NAIA, the governing body of athletic programs at small colleges nationwide, voting 20-0 to essentially ban trans women from competing with other women beginning Aug. 1, as ESPN reported.

“It is a shocking and devastating development that the NAIA, an organization that has done so much to open doors, is now slamming those doors shut on transgender athletes,” said Sasha Buchert, Lambda Legal’s senior attorney and director of the organization’s nonbinary and trans rights project. 

“Instead of standing up in support of transgender young people, the NAIA has simply turned its back on them — permanently depriving them of the benefits of competition. Would that they had the courage of victorious University of South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley, who didn’t miss a beat in clarifying that transgender women should be able to play.” 

However, praise for Staley’s stance was not universal. 

Riley Gaines, failed former college swimmer and paid shill for the anti-inclusion organization, Independent Women’s Forum, called Staley “entirely incompetent or a sell-out” on Fox News. “Personally, I don’t think she believes what she said.” 

Gaines has turned her fifth-place tie with out trans NCAA champion Lia Thomas into a career as a crusader against inclusion and a former advisor to the presidential campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Val Whiting, a former Stanford University and professional women’s basketball player, tweeted her strong disagreement with Staley. “A lot of my basketball sisters feel differently but trans women do not belong in women’s sports. It’s not fair nor safe for biological women. There has to be another solution for trans women to be able to compete athletically besides having them compete against biological women.” 

Zaksheske’s Outkick colleague, anti-trans pundit David Hookstead, also went all-in with a transphobic post. 

“Dawn Staley says she supports men who identify as women competing against real women in sports. Her view could literally destroy women’s basketball forever. Why won’t more people stand up for women?”

Hookstead then boasted that Staley blocked his account. 

Republican South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace retweeted Zaksheske’s account of his interaction with Staley, calling her support of trans athletes “absolute lunacy.” That in turn won praise from Caitlyn Jenner, who retweeted Whiting and posted her thanks to Mace, along with this comment: “There is nothing complicated about this issue!” 

What is complicated is that Jenner has never explained why she has competed with cisgender women in golf ever since her transition almost a decade ago. 

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Caitlyn Jenner backs NY county transgender athletes ban

‘Let’s stop it now while we can’

Published

1 month ago

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March 21, 2024

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Caitlyn Jenner endorses Nassau County's transgender athlete ban during a press conference. (YouTube screenshot)

Caitlyn Jenner flew from Malibu to New York this week to join her fellow Republicans in their nationwide quest to keep transgender girls and women from competing in sports with other women. 

“Let’s stop it now while we can,” said the Olympic gold medalist, at a news conference carried live by Fox News Channel. 

Republican Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman organized the event so that Jenner could speak in support of his February executive order banning trans athletes at more than 100 county-owned facilities. 

“Trans women are competing against women, taking valuable opportunities for the long-protected class under Title IX and causing physical harm,” said Jenner without providing supportive evidence of her claim. Jenner said the ban would defeat “the woke agenda.” 

Her comments drew praise from former NCAA swimmer and paid shill Riley Gaines, who represents the Independent Women’s Forum and has also worked with the failed presidential campaign of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on his anti-trans athlete platform.

“If the left wants to fight this battle on this hill, it’s a losing battle,” said Jenner. “We will win the battle.” She claimed she spoke on behalf of women and girls, contradicting her past statements in support of trans girls competing according to their gender identity and despite the fact she herself still competes in women’s sports.

Shortly after the ban was announced last month, New York State Attorney General Letitia James and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, both Democrats, denounced it and accused Blakeman of “bullying trans kids.” 

James called the order “transphobic and deeply dangerous,” and argued that it violates the state’s anti-discrimination laws. The state attorney general challenged it in court March 1 with a “cease and desist letter,” demanding that Blakeman rescind the order, saying it subjects women’s and girls’ sports teams to “invasive questioning.”

As the Los Angeles Blade reported, Blakeman’s legal team countered with its own lawsuit on March 5, claiming her cease and desist letter violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

“Not only was the executive order legal, but we had an obligation to defend it,” Blakeman said Monday. 

The order has also been challenged by the New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed suit last week on behalf of a women’s roller derby league based in Nassau County that welcomes trans women and would be barred from using the county’s facilities by Blakeman’s executive order.

Just days before the Long Island news conference, Jenner joined Olympian Sharron Davies, who also campaigns against trans inclusion in sports, for an conversation with a British newspaper, the Telegraph, which has been outspoken against trans inclusion. 

They recalled that in their day, tests to determine sex were mandatory in order to compete, and Jenner said she has been “pushing” for sex tests to return to sports, decades after sports organizations around the world abandoned the practice because they were unreliable. “If they continue down this road, it will be pretty much the end of women’s sport as we know it.”

“I can still hit a golf ball 280 yards,” Jenner continued, not mentioning she plays from the ladies’ tee. She did however opine about not being “a real woman,” acknowledging that many trans women disagree with her view. 

“They keep saying, ‘Oh, I’m a real woman, I’m a real woman,’ and I’m going, ‘No, you’re not,’” said Jenner. “I will use your preferred pronouns, I will treat you as a female, you can run and dress and do whatever you want, I have nothing against that, it’s fine, but biologically you’re still male.”

She added: “​Let me explain — I am biologically male, OK? I’m XY. There’s nothing I can do to change that. If you believe in gender dysphoria, and I think most people do realize it’s not a disease, it’s a mental condition, just like some people are left-handed and some people are right-handed, it’s kind of the way you’re born and I’ve dealt with it my entire life.“

“I consider myself a trans person, I am still genetically male, I changed all of my ID right down to my birth certificate so technically yes, I am female, but on the other hand I know I’m not.”

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