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 Amelie Oudea-Castera 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," Oudea-Castera 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.”
Clark cited British diver Tom Daley's rise to celebrity as an example.
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+.
“More and more people are coming out,” Buzinski said. “They realize it’s important to be visible because there’s no other way to get representation.”
Van Snick said it took her a long time to be truly comfortable with her own sexuality and that she was really only able to do so when she stepped out of the spotlight.
She noted ongoing debate, an in some cases, exclusion of transgender athletes in Olympic events as disappointing.
“The world has grown since I was an Olympic medalist," Van Snick said. “But when I think of the trans question, we have a long way to go.”
Still, Buzinski and LGBTQ+ advocates see the Paris Games as an opportunity for athletes who hail from parts of the world where competitors can't be openly gay because of harsh restrictions on queer populations.
“Coming to Paris, coming to France, they are able to be their true selves," said Jeremy Goupille, co-chair of the Pride House. The hub for the queer community during the Games debuted at the 2010 Olympics.
Goupille said security concerns remain for many athletes. Dating apps like Grindr, Bumble and Tinder have long been used as a shield for gay athletes who want to connect with other queer people in the countries where they are competing but don't want to feel publicly exposed.
But he said in previous Games, some have tried to expose athletes who are not officially out by checking heights, weights and locations of people on those apps.
Because of that, Grindr announced that in Paris they have disabled location-based features within the Olympic village where athletes stay and other official Games areas, saying it would allow LGBTQ+ athletes to connect “authentically without worrying about prying eyes 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 can put them at risk of being outed by curious individuals who may try to identify and expose them on the app," Grindr said in a statement.
Disabling those 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 so many bad people exist. At the same time, there are so many beautiful athletes," Goupille said. "They want to meet someone and it's difficult.”
