Wheelchair racer Tatyana McFadden, widely considered “the fastest woman in the world,” brought her Paralympic medal count to 22 in this year’s games, making her the most-decorated U.S. track and field athlete in either the Paralympics or Olympics. She was also raised by two moms!
Did you know that the U.S. Paralympics Track & Field co-captain was raised by two moms? And that there are at least five queer parent Paralympians also competing in Paris this week? Let’s meet them!
Although queer parents made up a small fraction of the record-breaking number of out queer athletes at the Paris Olympics, an astonishingly high percentage of them came home with medals. Meet them here—and see some of the kids’ reactions to their parents’ new hardware!
Training to be an elite athlete is tough. Parenting is tough. Being a queer person can be tough. Yet some of the athletes and coaches in the Paris Olympics are doing all three, and deserve our special respect and admiration. Here’s a little about them and their families.
As always, I have my eye on the queer parent athletes at the Olympics! Come meet them and see photos of their families! One met her future spouse when they were both 10 years old; the other is fighting for marriage equality in her home country.
All three queer parents who competed at the Paralympics this year won medals, including gold!
Tatyana McFadden last Saturday won her 20th Paralympic medal—8th gold—and set her 3rd world record! A new picture book biography traces her life from an orphanage in Russia, to being raised by two moms, to becoming “the fastest woman on Earth.”
Being a world-class athlete is hard. Being a parent at the same time is even harder. Yet of the 11 queer parents I know of who were competing in the Tokyo Olympics, six medaled (one twice!) and four came away with gold. That’s better than average odds, which I’d like to think means that being an LGBTQ parent increases your chances of getting an Olympic medal. (Well, maybe not—but read on for some fun if dubious statistics and a lot of appreciation for these athletes.)
It’s time for the Tokyo Olympics! As a fan and athlete, I will watch any event at any time—but I’ll be keeping a special eye on the queer parent athletes (and athletes with queer parents). Balancing parenting and high-level training, not to mention possible queerphobias—it’s a lot to handle, and they deserve our respect and admiration.
The Winter Olympics start this Thursday, and—proving once again that queer parents can do anything—there’s a queer parent competing: Dutch snowboarder and three-time Olympian Cheryl Maas. Read on to learn more about her.
