Queer pride in professional sports has never been as prominent as it is today. Several campaigns have been established across multiple professional sports leagues rallying against the discrimination of LGBTQ+ athletes, including the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup: two of the most watched sporting events in the world. In 2024, 193 openly queer athletes participated in the Paris Olympics: a record for the global sports competition. Notably, Canada, compared to the rest of the world, has demonstrated increased queer inclusivity. Looking at the big picture, it may seem as though Canada is more open-minded and tolerant towards queer communities than other parts of the world, as it was among the five countries that accounted for the majority of openly queer athletes at the Olympics. However, can such a simple comparison mean that Canada is actually an inclusive country for queer people? In recent decades, the way athletes are treated based on their sexual orientation has seen a positive shift in Canada, but this does not mean that they are totally free from the ongoing challenge of discrimination.
Canadian Queer Evolution in Sports
Mark Tewksbury came out as the first openly gay Canadian Olympian in 1998. While this may have seemed like a sign of progress in queer inclusion, coming out affected the swimmer’s career, as seen in how Tewksbury lost a six- figure motivational speaking contract for a financial institution as he was considered “too openly gay.”
One could say that times have changed. In the 2024 Paris Olympics, Team Canada consisted of 11 Canadian athletes who were publicly out, a record number for Canadian sports. However, of these 11 athletes, Justin Lui, a gay Canadian volleyball player, was the only one who participated in a male-division sport. This shows that there is indeed a potential lack of inclusivity in male-division sports due to entrenched gender norms. Although Lui shared his positive experience coming out in 2020 before participating in the Paris Olympics, he also discussed the environment of “toxic masculinity” that occurs within male sports. Toxic masculinity, by definition, refers to a set of cultural norms that pressure a man to act in certain ways, including dominating others and suppressing their emotions. If a male athlete were to cry during a game for example, a news story would be made out of it. This is a direct result of patriarchal norms.
Additionally, Quinn, a soccer player in the Canadian women’s team, became the first openly transgender and non-binary Olympic gold medalist in 2020, and the first transgender person to participate in the FIFA World Cup in 2023. They are an avid promoter of queer rights and representation in sports, and they constantly discuss the importance of these issues on their social media platforms.
These athletes’ coming-out stories are individual and independent of each other, however they are similar in that there is still fear about whether sexual orientation and gender identity will affect an athlete’s career. Notably, one cannot help noticing that there is a minority of queer men in Canadian sport. This demands the question: What stops male athletes from being comfortable enough to come out?
Environments of toxic masculinity tend to discourage male athletes from coming out in the first place, as they would be deemed vulnerable by others and hence different from the patriarchal view of what a male athlete should be. It might also cause them to be discriminated against based on their minority status, and in sports, where everyone is expected to have similar physiques and mental capabilities, sexual orientation becomes one of the few points where an athlete can be different.
Researchers such as Professor Cheryl Cooky from Purdue University argue that female athletes have an easier time coming out, as they are already challenging traditional gender norms by participating in sports and are therefore more comfortable with breaking down additional barriers, including those surrounding gender identity and sexual orientation. This is the case for Stephanie Labbé, the Canadian women’s soccer team goalkeeper who is now married to Olympic cycling medalist Georgia Simmerling. Unfortunately, this argument only reinforces the toxic masculinity within sports that has persisted through time, going to show how deeply gender norms are engraved in sports.
Is Canada actually inclusive?
Toxic masculinity can be rooted in the ground rules of sport themselves. In 2023, the NHL banned specialty warm-up jerseys, including the Pride jerseys that athletes would wear. This was done after they organized several Pride nights and provided funding to many Pride organizations. The NHL expressed that these jerseys were taking attention away from the hockey game, as players who chose not to wear Pride jerseys would receive backlash online. They also stated that the sport was becoming “too political”. A ban like this not only highlighted the homophobia embedded within the system and some of the players, but also led the public to question the sincerity behind the queer inclusivity efforts of the NHL, with this instance insinuating that the League may not actually believe in the standards they are promoting. Although this ban has since been reversed, it still reveals the holes in queer inclusivity in sports, such as hockey.
Instances such as these create a hostile, fear-ridden environment for queer athletes — especially for those who are closeted and whose coming out could negatively affect their career, just as it did for Tewksbury. Nevertheless, there are still other Canadian organizations that persist in their efforts to create an inclusive space for queer athletes. Egale Canada and Équipe Montréal have rallied for and produced safe environments for queer athletes to participate in mixed sports and share their experiences. They do so by providing resources and support for queer athletes who are facing discrimination, while also creating LGBTQ+-specific sports teams.
Other associations such as Athletics Canada have made it their mission to promote the inclusion of the transgender community in professional sports, which remains a serious debate today. On one hand, it is argued by major sports committees and some cigender athletes that biological factors may act as an unfair advantage or disadvantage for transgender athletes. However, on the other hand, the queer community and other athletic figures have expressed that inclusion is key, and that transgender athlete should not be denied their talents just because of their gender. The Olympic committee forces athletes to participate as the sex they were assigned to at birth. This may seem fair to some but can lead to dysphoria for transgender athletes, preventing them from participating in sports. This is an ongoing debate to which there still is no concrete consensus, but thanks to the activism of important athletes such as Quinn, it has become an important topic of conversation within Canadian professional sporting committees.
Canada remains one of the top five most accepting countries in the world, and will continue to pursue inclusion and equality as one of the hosts for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Still, sports in general must evolve with time, as many of its core aspects still reflect deep- rooted patriarchal expectations, stereotypes and gender norms.