US figure skater Timothy LeDuc, here with partner Ashley Cain-Gribble, is set to become the first openly non-binary person to compete at the Olympic Winter Games.
Photo: imago images / AFLOSPORT
Xu Jingsen became the first Chinese professional athlete to emerge from the shadows. In 2018, the surfer posted a photo on the Weibo social network showing him riding a wave. In the background: a rainbow flag. “Yes, I’m gay,” Xu wrote. “Today I am brave to be my true self and I consider it my greatest gift.” A few weeks later, Xu Jingsen carried the Chinese flag during the opening ceremony of the 2018 Gay Games in Paris. Almost 70 athletes of Chinese descent took part in this queer festival. Most of them do sports in their free time – they play no role in the Chinese state media.
More than 180 openly gay athletes from around the world attended the Tokyo Summer Olympics. Now at the Winter Games in Beijing there are at least 36 with smaller starting fields. In both cases this is a record, as activists of the US Internet platform “Outsports” have researched. “More and more athletes are going public and encouraging other people,” says Anne Lieberman of the non-governmental organization “Athlete Ally”. »But from the most populous country there is no openly queer athlete at the Olympics.«
It is estimated that around 70 million people in China are gay, lesbian, bisexual or intersex. Lawmakers decriminalized homosexuality in 1997 and removed it from the “mental illness” list in 2001. However, there is no anti-discrimination law. In recent years, homosexuality is tolerated as long as it remains private. But that seems to be over now: since the summer of 2021, authorities have blocked hundreds of various chat groups and blogs with LGBTQ topics. In November, one of the main groups, LGBT Rights Advocacy China, gave in to pressure and ceased operations.
“The political leadership uses the idea that homosexuality is an import from the West,” says sports sociologist Tobias Zuser, who teaches in Hong Kong. “Traditional gender images are more strongly emphasized in everyday life.” The top media regulator criticized “effeminate men” in video games and singers with make-up. Pop music from South Korea and films from Hollywood are said to be increasingly being pushed aside by local productions.
Sport is also positioned against the West in the »culture war«. Almost two years ago, the Department of Education required schools to hire “retired athletes to cultivate students’ masculinity.” On the other hand, popular footballers received bans. As early as 2018, the local football association gathered 50 young professionals in a military camp. And the following year, before the World Cup, China’s women soccer players received a lesson entitled “Motherland in my heart”.
In this climate, apart from professional surfer Xu Jingsen, only a few personalities have come out of the sport. In June 2021, national soccer player Li Ying made her relationship with an influencer public on the Weibo platform. Li received support but also encountered opposition. Shortly thereafter, her message disappeared from the network. After that, the striker was not called up for the national team for months and therefore missed the Olympic tournament in Tokyo. It is unclear whether she should be punished for her outing. She now keeps her relationship out of the public eye. In September 2021, the volleyball player Sun Wenjing went public with a coming out – but only two years after her career.
It wasn’t that long ago that queer athletes also had to hide in Europe and North America. Sometimes, however, sport offered them a shelter. The first queer sports club in Europe was SC Janus in Cologne in 1980. Two years later, US decathlete Tom Waddell founded the Gay Games in San Francisco. These games evolved into a platform for human rights, at least in the more liberal West.
This year, the Gay Games were supposed to take place in Asia for the first time, in Hong Kong, but due to the pandemic, they were postponed to November 2023. “Hong Kong’s government didn’t really want to have anything to do with the Gay Games,” says researcher Tobias Zuser. However, some activists are putting hope in the games. “We live in a very traditional society. Sexual diversity is almost never discussed in the media or school books,” says lawyer Wu Jian, who is currently doing research abroad and does not want to give his real name. »Thanks to the Gay Games, conservative parents in particular could see that we are not a threat to society.«
Homosexuality is still a criminal offense in 69 countries, and there is even a death penalty for same-sex sex in seven countries. On the other hand, at the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver and in the summer of 2012 in London, so-called »Pride Houses«, meeting points for queer athletes and fans, opened. “Even without Corona, such a place in Beijing would be unthinkable,” says Wu Jian. In Beijing, Shanghai or Guangzhou, the LGBTQ community has to organize their recreational sports in a conspiratorial manner, otherwise there is a risk of losing halls. Far away from the metropolis, sport as a retreat is still pure utopia.
