2026 Winter Olympics: All 40+ Gay Women and Trans Athletes

Last week, the 2026 Winter Olympics kicked off in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. Before all the pomp and circumstance of the Opening Ceremonies ushered in the official start of the games, athletes in curling, ice hockey, and snowboarding had already kicked off their respective races to the gold.

Over the next two weeks, we’ll bear witness to some of the most incredible feats of athleticism, things that we didn’t even know the human body was capable of. The line between awe-inspiring and absolute calamity is razor thin at the Winter Games — as we’ve already seen — and as viewers, we watch, with baited breath, to see if our favorite Olympians can upset their opponents and gravity, in equal measure. Athletes that have perfected their craft in relative obscurity (hockey and figure skating, notwithstanding) now get a global stage and we’ll all get to witness their greatness. Increasingly, that greatness comes courtesy of queer athletes.

Admittedly, the number of out athletes competing at the Winter Olympics has always paled in comparison to the Summer Games but it’s worth noting that the winter games are significantly smaller overall. There are nearly 3,000 athletes competing in Italy, whereas nearly 11,000 athletes competed in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. More importantly, the numbers of out competitors — and, in particular, the number of out female competitors — continues to increase steadily. In 2022, Autostraddle highlighted 23 gay Olympians competing in Beijing; this year, we have nearly that many competing in women’s hockey alone. Hopefully that number will continue to grow, as information about these athletes becomes more accessible and/or as more athletes become willing to showcase that part of themselves publicly.

Compiling a list of “who all’s gay here” for any sport — and I’ve done many of them — is a funny task, but this time, it feels particularly necessary. As a viewer, international contests like the Olympics or the World Cup have always been a fraught exercise. It becomes almost impossible to avoid the nationalism that comes with events like this: your team is a country. And, at this moment, cheering for that team doesn’t just feel fraught, it feels gross. How do you cheer for a team at the Winter Olympics and not allow it to descend into sportswashing? I say all of this thinking primarily of what’s going on in the United States at this moment, but the world is vast and no one’s hands are unclean.

“It’s been a hard time for the community overall and this administration. It isn’t the first time that we’ve had to come together as a community and try to fight for our human rights,” American Figure Skater Amber Glenn said. “And now, especially, it’s not just affecting the queer community, but many other communities. And I think that we are able to support each other in a way that we didn’t have to before, and because of that, it’s made us a lot stronger.”

In all the moments in which this country has disappointed me and left me discouraged, I’ve found that the answer almost always is to turn to my community and, when it comes to these Games, I encourage others to do the same. Don’t cheer for the team, cheer for these incredible LGBT Olympians, cheer for your community. In the wise words of another LGBT Olympian, “let’s fuckin’ go.”

Events: Women’s Downhill (GOLD), Women’s Team Combined

Events: Women’s Single Skating, Team Event

Events: FreeSki Big Air, FreeSki Slopestyle

Events: Dual Moguls, Moguls

Events: Dual Moguls, Moguls

Elis Lundholm will be the first ever openly transgender athlete at the Winter games. Lundholm is a trans man, but as per the IOC’s restrictions on trans athletes, he’ll be skiing in the women’s competition.

Events: Slopestyle, Big Air

Events: Ski Cross

Hilary Knight is in a relationship with speed skater Brittany Bowe.

Marie-Phillip, the “consensus best women’s hockey player on the planet,” is married to fellow Canadian Ice Hockey Olympian Laura Stacey.

Ronja is married to Ana Kjellbin, who is playing on Finland’s ice hockey team.

Kim Meylemans is married to Nicole Silveira (the next athlete on this list!)

Event: Snowboard Halfpipe

Event: Women’s 1000m, Women’s 1500m, Women’s 500m

Brittany Bowe is in a relationship with Team USA Ice Hockey player Hilary Knight.

Event: Women’s 1000m, Women’s 1500m

If you have any information about other out Olympians, we may have missed, please feel free to leave them in the comments.