PARIS — When Charline Van Snick flirted with another female athlete after winning the bronze medal in Judo in the 2012 London Olympic Games, she said her coach told her she needed to stay in the closet for the future of her career.
“It was a moment when I didn’t feel like myself,” the 33-year-old retired Belgian Olympian said. “He said, Charline, you have to fit in the box. Everyone is looking at you and you have to be straight. … I understood that it’s not a place to be yourself, it’s not a place to be LGBTQ+.”
While the Olympic Games have made giant strides in the years since — the Paris 2024 Olympics set a record for the most athletes who are openly LGBTQ+ — advocates and athletes say international athletics have a long way to go in opening up to the queer community.
There has been outcry from religious groups and others to Friday’s opening ceremony that showcased DJ and producer Barbara Butch — an LGBTQ+ icon — flanked by drag artists and dancers in a scene that critics interpreted as mocking Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” Butch says her lawyer is filing complaints over threats and other abuse she’s faced online following the show.
During the ceremony, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, sent a message in his speech: “In our Olympic world, we all belong.”
Parisian officials kept up their push for inclusion Monday night with the opening of the Olympic Pride House, located on a boat floating on the city’s famous Seine River. French sports minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra told The Associated Press that they were “sending a message of inclusion” in these Games.
“It’s important to Paris, to keep fighting against all types of discrimination,” Oudéa-Castéra said. “We need to drive this progress in society and the reason I am here today is because sport is a very powerful agent to do that.”
The Paris Olympics broke a record by having 193 openly LGBTQ+ athletes competing, according to Outsports, a website compiling a database of openly queer Olympians. The count surpassed the 186 athletes at the COVID-19-delayed Tokyo Olympics held in 2021.
The Olympic officials’ messages and the record were welcomed by many in the LGBTQ+ community like 31-year-old Matt Clark, among those celebrating the inauguration of the Pride House. Clark said Paris has “started a legacy that is going to continue in other Games.”
“It is going to continue with other athletes and young people everywhere that it is OK to be gay and it is OK to be queer and you have a future in front of you,” Clark said. “Five, 10 years ago, you had coaches telling their athletes don’t come out, it will ruin your career. Now it has become a springboard for people’s careers.”
The number of openly LGBTQ+ Olympians has skyrocketed in recent decades. Jim Buzinski, co-founder of Outsports, said when they started tracking athletes at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, they counted only around five who were openly LGBTQ+.
