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Saturday, Aug 23, 2008 5:02 pm EDT
Openly gay diver wins gold

By Maggie Hendricks

Diver Matthew Mitcham, the only openly gay male athlete in the Beijing Olympics, won gold in the 10m platform. He beat Chinese favorite Zhou Luxin by 4.8 points, preventing China from sweeping gold in diving events. Mitcham is the first Aussie to win diving gold since 1924, but that's not the only thing that makes him a trailblazer.

He is hardly the first gay athlete to compete but he is one of the first to be out while competing. American diver Greg Louganis did not share his orientation until his diving career was over. To Mitcham, he is just living his life as a gay man and as a diver, and there is nothing extraordinary about that:

“Being gay and diving are completely separate parts of my life. Of course there’s going to be crossover because some people have issues, but everyone I dive with has been so supportive."

Though he wants to be known as more than a gay man, the LGBT community is proud of their star. At OutSports, a sports Web site that focuses on the gay community, his win is front-page news. The Web site brings up a good question -- will NBC mention Mitcham's orientation during tonight's broadcast?

To Mitcham, that doesn't seem to matter. He has gold, and has reached his goals: "I’m happy with myself and where I am. I’m very happy with who I am and what I’ve done.”

While he has made tremendous strides for the gay community, I doubt that anything willbe mentioned of his sexual orientation as other straight athletes are not promoted as being heterosexual.

While he has made tremendous strides for the gay community, I doubt that anything willbe mentioned of his sexual orientation as other straight athletes are not promoted as being heterosexual.

I kind of agree. Being gay doesn't really affect what you do in the olympics, [insert bed shower joke here], it's your hard work and determinaton as an athlete that gets you there (assuming predispositions from mother nature, of course).

A giant leap (either forward or back) would see how a TS would be treated winning a gold medal in an event...

Azurielle wrote:A giant leap (either forward or back) would see how a TS would be treated winning a gold medal in an event...

I'm not so certain about that. Unfortunately sports in general, and the Olympic games are no exception, tend to be rigidly divided by gender. No matter what gender you qualify to compete as you're going to get some flack if you're openly transgendered or transsexual.

MTF competing as male? Not committed to your chosen gender.
MTF competing as female? Unfair genetic advantage.
FTM competing in any capacity? Hormones as performance enhancing drugs.

I suspect the only real win would be in a gender-neutral competition.

Hi Ladies
There was recently a forum on NPR about transgendered athletes. They mentioned one from the 1936Olympics in Germany.

"Another instance, widely cited as an example of masquerading, actually raises the poignant dilemma of the intersexed athlete. German high jumper Dora Ratjen competed in the 1936 Berlin Oympics but was barred from further competition in 1938, when she was examined and discovered to have ambiguous genitalia. After the war, Ratjen, by then living as Hermann, acknowledged that the Nazi Youth Movement had forced him to compete as a woman.:


Very interesting. There is now talk of testing competitors for gender. Sorry Virginia. There goes your gold medal in the 2012 Olympic womens powerlifting event. Hugs.

Love
Jeannie

Kimberly Kael wrote: MTF competing as male? Not committed to your chosen gender.
MTF competing as female? Unfair genetic advantage.
FTM competing in any capacity? Hormones as performance enhancing drugs.

Thats precisely my point. How would a TS be handled at the olympics would surely give grounding for TG status. However, I think that it'd probably be a step back, just like when that guy with both legs amputated to the knees beat the record for mens' marathon in the 90s.
The Guinness gook of world records refused to acknowlege him because his prosthethics supposedly absorbed more vibrations and gave him an unfair advantage over people with real heels that ached.
Hence, he was listed only in the Ripley's, which is more of a book about unusually deformed individuals than about athletes, until his record was beaten in 02 (I think it's 2002, anyhow) and he was completely forgotten about.

Sad story really. Makes you realise how corrupt this world we live in really is.

(And honestly, even if the prosthetics gave you an unfair advantage, would you have your legs cut off and go through years of rehabilitation and phantom pains just to shave off a few seconds off of your personnal best? Didn't think so.)

After watching track records fall at the Olympics, I am sure that his prosthetics would not have been a factor. It would be interesting to compare Track records at the Para-Olympics to the Olympics. I bet you will not see a huge difference.
I remember when the first turbine powered race car, ran in the Indi500. Other drivers got upset, saying it had an unfair advantage. The solved the problem by limiting the intake dia, which capped it's horsepower.
They coud do the same for prosthetics. Only approved prosthetics could be use so as not to give the athlete an unfair advantage.