Sports gay moments

He went on to write a book called The David Kopay Story to document his experiences as a gay man in sports.

While there were some controversies that trace back to homophobia and transphobia, let’s look back on the good stuff; queer folks crushed these Olympic Games!

The games kicked off with a tableau runway of drag queens recreating a Dionysian bacchanal (not the Last Supper, as many were up in arms about) and Lady Gaga as a headlining performer.

Let us know! We look forward to more JMSS listening in 2025.

Also in April…Alex Kay-Jelski is appointed Director of Sport by the BBC – it’s considered to be the top job in British sports media; there’s more than a touch of queerness to the hit tennis movie “Challengers”, released in the UK this month; a landmark study of trans athletes is published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine – it cautions against blanket bans; Metro speaks to Farrah Herbert, an inspirational triathlete and trans woman who’s raising money for charity; before a huge NCAA final, South Carolina Gamecocks coach Dawn Staley says trans women belong in women’s sports – it’s one of my favourite LGBTQ sports moments of the year…

May: ‘Quit playing games with my heart…’

We’d had a football referee as one of the contestants on BBC reality dating show ‘I Kissed A Boy’ last year – but for ‘I Kissed A Girl’ which launched in May, we got two players in the women’s game!

Georgia Robert (who now has “TV Lezza” proudly displayed in her Instagram bio) is a defender for Rugby Borough, who ended the year in the FA WNL Premier Division’s top four.

And if that means starting up something new in sports, then so be it – there’ll be somebody out there who’s done the same and who can advise you.

The one thing we should never, ever do is make excuses for prejudice. This move was justified on the grounds of preventing male athletes to pose as females as that can create an unfair advantage for the female competitors.

Over a third of out athletes made it onto a podium.

Throughout July and August, Pride House on the Seine was the perfect place to unwind away from the action. Rowles’ outstanding advocacy continues alongside her athletic achievements. Can you assist? She’s now an OBE too!

And there was a record number of out LGBTQ+ Paralympians, with at least 44 known to Outsports by the completion of the Games – one of them, long jump athlete Dimitri Pavade of France, even came out publicly on Instagram after competing, to great acclaim.

As well as Rowles’ triumph, there were two more medals for Team L(GB)TQ on the lake at Vaires-sur-Marne as Emma Wiggs claimed a gold and a silver in para canoe.

Looking back on the Paris Games as a whole, there’s no getting away from the fact that much of the coverage of Olympic women’s boxing was deeply transphobic.

This opened the doors for the trans community to participate and compete in Olympics as opposed to earlier, when they were required to go through humiliating tests to qualify for participation. Give it a watch!

Also in December… Brazil’s Joao Lucas Reis da Silva comes out as gay in men’s pro tennis, and is soon named Outsports Male Hero of the Year; Noa-Lynn van Leuven makes her debut at the PDC World Darts Championship and to great relief, is not subjected to any anti-trans jeering by fans; we picked out the positive moments from a bumpy Rainbow Laces activation; Jakub Jankto celebrates Christmas by kissing his boyfriend under the tree; here are Outsports’ 24 most-read LGBTQ sports stories of the year…

What were your memorable LGBTQ+ in sports and sports media moments from 2024?

Beloved queer Team GB diver Tom Daley won his fifth Olympic gold medal in front of his husband and their two children in the men’s 10-meter platform synchronized diving event. This project was a collaborative effort among many organisations such as the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the National Collegiate Athletic Association and the Gay and Lesbian Education Network.

Meanwhile, the “stick to sports” brigade are getting louder and the backlash against EDI initiatives continues to grow.

For journalists and content creators, it’s harder now to get positive coverage published by major outlets who are focusing more and more on controversy, or worse, clickbait.

Outsports’ 25th anniversary is therefore something to be very thankful for – and yes, I’m biased (but I did try to explain myself).

International Olympics Committee (IOC) ends gender testing in 1999: In 1999, the IOC repealed its 30-year-old policy of mandatory gender testing. Two that deserve to stand the test of time were in boxing – Filipino fighter Hergie Bacyadan was the first publicly out trans man to compete at an Olympic Games, while Cindy Ngamba made history as the Refugee Olympic Team’s first medalist.

Also in July… an Olympic fencer and a Spanish sports club president win EGLSF Advocacy Awards at EuroGames in Vienna; a Gallup survey suggests nearly 1 in 5 LGBTQ+ adults in America have never come out to anyone; Grace Robertson writes at the end of her Euro 2024 final blog about her “life-changing” year on hormones; Fans for Diversity, which has helped to fund so many LGBTQ+ fan groups and projects, celebrates its 10th birthday; former F1 driver Ralf Schumacher comes out as gay by telling the world he has a boyfriend…

---

August: ‘I wanna grow the apple, keep all the seeds…’

While outrage and transphobic venom about the participation of Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting in women’s boxing spilled over from social into the mainstream media, there was plenty of queer joy to be found elsewhere in Paris in August.

Love was in the air – Aussie athlete Campbell Harrison kissing his boyfriend Justin at the climbing was a Heartstopper moment, while rugby star Alev Kelter proposed to her girlfriend after helping the USA win bronze.