Beijing 2022 has had the highest number of openly LGBTQ+ competitors at a Winter Olympic Games ever, including its first nonbinary athlete. There were at least 35 openly LGBTQ+ athletes representing 15 countries competing at the Beijing 2022 Games, according to Outsports, more than double the number at PyeongChang, South Korea, in 2018 (15) and five times the number at Sochi, Russia, in 2014 (7).
The record number of out-athletes competing in Beijing stands against an increasingly oppressive environment for LGBTQ+ people in China, including an online crackdown of social media accounts and the abrupt cancellation of the country’s only major pride event in Shanghai.
