The LGBT team has also grown larger this year at the Paralympics in Paris: According to “Outsports”, a total of 38 openly queer athletes are competing in the Summer Olympics for people with physical disabilities, which opened on Wednesday. That corresponds to 0.9 percent of all participants.
At the beginning of the 2021 Paralympics in Tokyo, 28 queer participants were known to participate (queer.de reported). Over the course of the sporting event, the number increased to 36 (see list).
This year, women again make up the vast majority of the LGBT team: they make up 32 members, plus five men and one non-binary person. As was the case three years ago, there is only one queer participant from Germany: 34-year-old wheelchair basketball player Mareike Miller, who brought home a gold medal with the German team in 2012 and a silver medal in 2016.
Unlike three years ago, this time the United States of America does not have the most queer participants: With eight athletes, Brazil leads the LGBT team this year, followed by Great Britain with seven participants. Only then comes the USA with five queer participants, including three from women’s basketball.
Criticism of participation of trans athlete
In the run-up to the games, there had been criticism of the participation of the first trans athlete, Valentina Petrillo (queer.de reported). Her likely German opponent Katrin Müller-Rottgardt, among others, complained about this: “Basically, everyone should live in everyday life the way they feel comfortable. But I find it difficult in competitive sport,” said the competitor.
At the Summer Olympics, there was a record number of queer participants: At the beginning of the games, “Outsports” counted 155 members of the LGBT team at the end of July (queer.de reported). By the end of the games, there were already 195. This queer team was able to win more medals than the much larger German team (queer.de reported). (cw)
