These LGBTQIA stars took home the biggest prize at the Games this year
BY YASMIN VINCE, IMAGE BY JUST LIKE US
The 2024 Paris Paralympics was, quite comfortably, the most queer games to date. It began with an electrifying opening ceremony starring Christine And The Queens and queer activist-turned Paralympic torch bearer Barbara Butch, and even featured a record number of at least 32 out athletes.
By the end of the games, queer athletes had accrued nine gold medals. Had they been competing as one country, Team LGBTQIA would have placed within the top 15 on the medal table. Who are the nine athletes that have gone home with a gold?
Lauren Rowles
The parasport rower won a gold medal in the mixed double sculls alongside Gregg Stevenson for Team GB. This is Rowles’ third Paralympic gold, having previously won the mixed double sculls at both Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.
Rowles is engaged to fellow Paralympian Jude Hamer, a wheelchair basketball player. The pair welcomed their first child, Noah Arlo, in March this year. Back in 2023, the rower was named Sports Personality of the Year by PinkNews and used her acceptance speech to speak out against the discrimination trans athletes face. She said sport should be “for all”.
“That includes our trans brothers and sisters that are, unfortunately, being segregated, not just in British rowing but all sports.”
Emma Wiggs
In another win for Team GB, Wiggs took home the gold in the women’s 200m canoe sprint. This wasn’t her only medal, as she also took home the silver in another canoe event. It’s also not her only sport as Wiggs competed with the GB women’s sitting volleyball team in 2012.
It was during this time that she met her wife, Gemma. Since then, Wiggs has spoken out about the dual discrimination faced by queer disabled athletes.
Hailey Danz
The American para triathlete took home silver at both Rio and Tokyo but clinched the gold this year. Two years ago, she wrote an essay for Team USA’s website about how seeing openly gay athletes helped her “work through my shame and insecurities”.
She finished the essay with: “Now, for the first time in my life, I’m proud to be gay.”
Christie Raleigh-Crossley
Raleigh-Crossley won two gold medals in Paris, for 100m backstroke and 100m butterfly respectively.
This was the non-binary swimmer’s first Paralympics. In 2018, they were training for the Tokyo Olympics but following a brain injury, they experienced paralysis on the left side and had to transition to para-swimming.
Alana Martins Maldonado
The Brazilian judoka became the first woman from Brazil to win gold in Paralympic judo in Tokyo. She followed this success with another win in Paris.
She is married to another judoka, Wedja Santos.
Marie Patouillet
Having competed at home this Paralympics, the French cyclist was expected to win two golds. In the end, she won one gold, for the individual pursuit, and a silver for the time trial, for which fellow queer athlete, Kate O’Brien, won bronze. As the time trial was the opening medal event of the games, this made the first podium 66 per cent queer.
Patouillet is a prominent French LGBTQIA activist. She was one of the Pride House ambassadors at Paris 2024.
Nikki Ayers
Ayers, alongside rowing partner Jed Altschwager, won a gold in mixed double sculls. Together, they became the first Australian winners in Paralympic rowing.
The Australian, alongside Marie Patouillet, was an ambassador for the Paris Pride House this year. This is the first Paralympics in which she is openly queer.
Moran Samuel
Samuel won the gold for Israel in the women’s 200m single sculls. She has been competing at the Paralympic Games since 2012.
Her wife, Limor Samuel Goldberg, is also an athlete. The two have a son, Arad.
Katie-George Dunlevy
Ireland’s only gold at the Paralympics went to cyclist Dunlevy. Dunlevy has previously won gold for time trials at both Rio and Tokyo. She also won silver in the individual pursuit and road race. She is the most successful Irish female Paralympian of all time.
Dunlevy has spoken very candidly about how “lucky” she feels to queer in Ireland. She told ESPN: “You realize you can go around and hold your partner’s hand and most of the time, it is positive”.
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