Meet 5 out LGBTQ athletes competing in the Milan Winter Paralympics
Out LGBTQ athletes are primed for the Winter Paralympics. 'I take immense pride in being gay because it isn’t separate from my success.' The post Meet 5 out LGBTQ athletes competing in the Milan Winter Paralympics appeared first on Outsports.
Mark
Out LGBTQ athletes compete at all levels of all sports and the 2026 Winter Paralympics, which start in Milan on Friday, are no exception. Outsports has identified at least five out athletes who will be competing in five of the six sports at the Games.
The five out athletes are Jackie Hamwey (snowboard, USA); Jake Adicoff (cross-country skiing, USA); Michael “Mikey” O’Hearn (alpine skiing, USA); Hailey Griffin (alpine skiing, USA) and Jo Butterfield (curling, Great Britain).
O’Hearn, who will compete in the men’s giant slalom, is proud to be an out gay athlete, especially because of what it says about visibility.
“Visibility carries representation,” he told Outsports. “When you see someone like you competing at the highest level, it resonates. Every time a gay athlete competes openly, the landscape shifts for the next.
“Being gay in sport is a rarity. I take immense pride in being gay because it isn’t separate from my success, it is a source of it. Fire that fueled me, the edge that sharpened me, courage that carried me when the world didn’t always clap. Being gay in sport is still rare. We are underrepresented. And when you’re underrepresented, you learn quickly how to show up and show out.”
Get off the sidelines and into the game
Our weekly playbook is packed with everything from locker room chatter to pressing LGBTQ sports issues.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today
Griffin, who will compete in the women’s slalom and giant slalom, agrees with O’Hearn.
“My disability doesn’t define who I am as a person, nor does my sexuality, but they are a part of me,” Griffin told Outsports. “My hope is that with further representation, people will begin to see me and people like me as a whole instead of judging us solely on a few of our more ‘controversial’ parts.”
The Winter Paralympics have been held since 1976 and Milan Cortina will be the biggest yet, with 665 athletes from 50 countries competing. Out LGBTQ athletes will compete in five of the six sports, with men’s ice hockey being the exception. There is no women’s ice hockey division and if there was, the number of out athletes would be much larger. At the just-completed Winter Olympics, 23 of the 50 out athletes were women’s hockey players. (The Athletic has a great primer on the six sports and how each is contested.)
Related
Gay skier Jake Adicoff has lofty goal: 4 gold medals at Winter Paralympics
Gay Paralympic cross-country skier says he wants to win 4 gold medals, ‘having fun training and racing alongside some of my best friends.’Second Paralympic gold medal is target for British curling star, whose wife will cheer her on
Jo Butterfield was a Summer Paralympics champion at Rio 2016. A decade later, she is a major Winter medal hope in Cortina for Great Britain and Team LGBTQ.
Historian Tony Scupham-Bilton, who has compiled a list of out Olympians in history and is a definitive source, said he knows of only five LGBTQ Winter Paralympians ever (not all were out at the time): Jake Adicoff (USA), biathlon and cross-country skiing 2014, 2018, 2022; Andrea Eskau (Germany), parabiathlon and sitting cross-country skiing 2010, 2014, 2018; Allison Jones (USA), alpine skiing 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014; Laura Oftedahl (USA), cross-country skiing 1984 and Cindy Ouelett (Canada), sitting cross-country skiing 2018.
Adicoff, who won a gold medal in Beijing, sees parallels between being a Paralympian and being gay.
“We, as para athletes, have a very important role to showcase ability, to showcase that there is this high level of sport that you can achieve. I think that same thing is really necessary for queers in sports,” Adicoff said.
“There are high levels of attrition. The higher you get in sport, the less out people that you see, and I think going to the Paralympics, being a gay athlete there, showing that it’s possible to reach this upper echelon of sport as an out athlete and as a para athlete, that’s super important to me.”
The Winter Paralympics features athletes who have been impaired since birth along with those whose disabilities are the result of accidents. O’Hearn, for example, was born with a rare disorder that twisted his joints to the point where he parents were first told he wouldn’t survive childbirth and then would not walk. He has defied both predictions to become elite in his sport, one he took up at age 3.
Snowboarder Hamwey was a successful multisport athlete who had her leg amputated mid-calf after a 2016 boating accident and now competes with prosthetics. She is competing in her first Paralympics, with her partner cheering her on.
We know we likely have missed some out athletes, especially those who are non-Americans, as Outsports is based in the United States. If you know of an out LGBTQ Paralympian not on the list, please contact us via email (team@outsports.com), or direct message us on Twitter/X (@outsports), Instagram (@outsports) or Facebook (OutsportsSBN).
Subscribe to the Outsports newsletter to keep up with your favorite out athletes, inspiring LGBTQ sports stories, and more.
The post Meet 5 out LGBTQ athletes competing in the Milan Winter Paralympics appeared first on Outsports.
