During Pride Season and all year round, Skate Guard celebrates the milestones and achievements of LGBTQ+ skaters! I hope you enjoy taking a glide through the good, bad and ugly of LGBTQ+ figure skating history with this timeline.
Some prefaces to this list:
- It's super important to recognize the fact that life for LGBTQ+ skaters today is absolutely nothing like it was decades ago. Depending on the country/time period, admitting you weren't straight publicly could result in you losing your job and home. You could be harassed by police, institutionalized, chemically castrated or jailed.
- For every skater I have chosen to include in this list, there are dozens upon dozens more that I haven't. It is by no means a comprehensive listing of every LGBTQ+ figure skater.
- In some cases, I have included skaters who haven't been identified as members of the LGBTQ+ community. I don't know about you, but I think doing Axels in drag is fabulous enough to make the cut.
- Louder for the people in the back... Whether or not a skater came out publicly during their career is not any sort of 'measure' of their courage or relevance, nor is who came out first a competition. Many were very much out for years before their sexuality ever came to the attention of the media or general public; many more simply couldn't come out for a host of reasons.
A TIMELINE OF LGBTQ+ FIGURE SKATING HISTORY
1869 - Callie Curtis caused a stir when he masqueraded in Victorian drag as 'Miss Godbout, the lady from New Brunswick' to compete in a women's skating competition in the state of New York.
Jackson Haines
1871 - Jackson Haines took to the ice at Wenceslas Square in Prague, dressing as a woman in one program and doing a little same-sex ice dancing with his Austrian protégé Franz Bellazi in another. Haines' flamboyant performances, coupled with the fact he left his wife and children behind in America, have led some to ponder his sexual orientation.
1905 - Gustav V, then Crown Prince of Sweden and Norway, showed a special interest in figure skating, awarding World Champion Ulrich Salchow a special prize. During his reign as King of Sweden, Gustav V was embroiled in a scandal when the Royal Court paid off a man who claimed he was the King's lover.
1938 - Virginia sportswriter Gayle Talbot complained that Sonja Henie should be "charged with having a made a lot of... fancy Dan's out of this country's ice skaters." Over the years, many gay men skated in Henie's Hollywood Ice Revue.
Bobby Specht
1942 - U.S. Champion Bobby Specht joined the cast of the Ice Capades. Bob Turk got his start with the tour as Bobby's understudy and went on to work as a producer and choreographer for the show. In a 2016 interview, Bob recalled, "Bobby was very, very gay and never tried to hide it. He and Alan Konrad were sort of lovers for a time, but he never really had a lover until the end of his life... He was the sweetest person in the world."
1942 - British Olympian Freddie Tomlins brought down the house with his drag skating act 'The Blonde Bombshell'. The following year, Freddie (an Air Gunner with the Royal Air Force) was tragically killed during an operational flight over the English Channel.
Freddie Tomlins as 'The Blonde Bombshell'
1945 - LGBTQ+ icon Judy Garland attended the Ice Follies in Los Angeles.
1950 - A long-term relationship between two women was an open secret in the figure skating world.
Tab Hunter
1950 - Art Gelien won the silver medal in the pairs event at the Pacific Coast Championships. Gelien went on to star in over forty films under the stage name Tab Hunter. In his 2005 autobiography, he discussed his relationship with 1956 Olympic Silver Medallist Ronnie Robertson.
1951 - Peter Firstbrook won his first of three Canadian titles. A 2018 memoir penned by Gordon Crosland recounted a liaison between the two skaters.
1952 - Armando 'Pancho' Rodriguez won the silver medal in the junior men's event at the U.S. Championships. In 2014, writer Kenneth Caldwell recalled his time working for Rodriguez and his partner Harry.
Photos courtesy University Of Pennsylvania Archives
1953 - The same month he won a pair of silver medals in ice dancing at the North American Championships, Donald Jacoby was arrested on 'morals charges'. A benevolent judge found Donald and his friend not guilty. Bringing men up on "morals charges" and tarnishing their names in the press was a typical tactic of the time to 'shame' young men into 'going on the straight and narrow'. This kind of invented scandal would have no doubt generated a great deal of rink locker room gossip and unpleasantness at the time.
June Markham and Courtney Jones
1957 - Courtney Jones won his first of four gold medals at the World Championships in ice dancing. In his 2021 autobiography "Around the Ice in Eighty Years", Jones recalled, "In sport, in principle, gays did not officially exist until figure skating began coming to the fore after the war, and as this was a cross between athletics and dance, it was realised that possibly some of 'them' could be taking part. However, it was like having a death in the family - you didn't mention it and hid behind your fan... I suppose I was a late bloomer and didn't really come out until I was working and skating in London and realized that I wasn't the only gay in the skating village; but, even then, one didn’t shout it from the rooftops, as some of the older judges would have had fainting fits." Jones went on to serve on the ISU Council and as President of Great Britain's National Skating Association. His partner Bobby Thompson was a successful ice dancing coach.
1965 - The Winterland arena in San Francisco, established summer home of the Ice Follies, played host to the Beaux Arts Ball where José Julio Sarria, the Widow Norton, was named Royal Empress de San Francisco, Jose I.
Photo courtesy Arquives Canada
1968 - Antique dealer and figure skating coach Frank Thornton was charged with gross indecency. He was arrested when plain-clothes police officers spied on him hooking up in a washroom at the Bloor-Yonge Streets Subway station in Toronto. He faced deportation to the United States but won in the first round of his contestation.
1969 - Boston skating coach and Spiritualist church minister Marion Proctor's book "Figure Skating" made a point of stating that skating wasn't a "sissy" sport. Proctor wrote, "Figure skating does not have to be performed in an effeminate manner... A real man can have exquisite timing and express rhythm and grace, yet still retain or perhaps enhance his masculinity... Our men champions are very male." Tiresome articles along this vein were penned for newspapers and magazines for decades, hardly making LGBTQ+ skaters feel welcome in the sport.
1972 - Ondrej Nepela won the Olympic gold medal. Toller Cranston later recalled a hook-up with Nepela during the 1973 World Championships in Bratislava in his 2000 book "When Hell Freezes Over, Should I Bring My Skates?"
John Curry
1976 - John Curry won the Olympic gold medal in Innsbruck. At a press conference the next day, a reporter asked him, "Don't you keep getting asked if you're gay?" He replied, "I am." This admission was not included in Associated Press dispatches but made front page news in European papers nonetheless. In a subsequent interview with the "Daily Express", he stated that he wasn't "a militant gay... I don't talk about sex. There is a lot of rubbish about gays being extra artistic. I don't think sexuality has anything to do with sensitivity. For every great gay actor there is one who isn't."
1976 - Toller Cranston faced criticism in "The Body Politic Gay Liberation Journal". In the "Trash" column, an unnamed columnist wrote, "Poor boy doesn't even admit to going down Yonge St... which is taking closetry pretty far for a 26-year-old." Cranston never put labels on his sexuality but described encounters with both men and women in his autobiographies. His wit and flair made him an icon in the LGBTQ+ community in Canada.
Toller Cranston. Photo courtesy Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.
1978 - Unstable religious zealots sounded off on the 'sins of skating'. A reporter for "La Voz Eterna" magazine wrote, "Roller skating or ice skating at a rink where music is played is not a place for a Christian, whether it is a school class party or otherwise. One may try to justify the music by saying: music is played to drown out the loud noise of the skates, but this is not so. This is the voice of the devil speaking. The music here, too, gets under the feet and in the body. Before one is even aware of it, one is listening to the music and unconsciously moving with the music." Though this may seem an extreme example, it is impossible not to consider the role religion has played in the lives of LGBTQ+ skaters over the years. It kept many skaters in the closet and was a driving force behind much of the homophobia they faced.
1981 - A clip of Toller Cranston skating in his special "Dream Weaver" was included in the film "Taxi zum Klo", which highlighted gay culture in West Berlin.
Michael Seibert, Judy Blumberg, John Curry, Ken Shelley, JoJo Starbuck, Tai Babilonia and Randy Gardner at the AIDS benefit show "Skating For Life".
1981 - San Francisco LGBTQ+ newspaper the "Bay Area Reporter" published its first mention of 'Gay Men's Pneumonia'. In the decades that followed, more than twice as many members of the figure skating community died as a result of complications of HIV/AIDS than in the 1961 Sabena Crash. Among them, Olympic Medallists, World Champions, coaches, choreographers and ice show stars. These men's stories will be highlighted in detail in Skate Guard's upcoming feature "They Skated Away".
1982 - Brian Pockar claimed the bronze medal at the 1982 World Championships.
1982 - Robert Wagenhoffer won his first of two gold medals at the World Professional Championships in Jaca, Spain.
1985 - Toronto teacher and librarian Kenneth Zeller was beaten to death by five youths in Toronto's High Park. The tragedy forced the Toronto District School Board to implement a program to end discrimination based on sexual orientation. In his youth, Zeller was an enthusiastic member of the Stouffville Figure Skating Club.
1987 - Stuart Livie passed away in San Francisco. A veteran of World War II, Livie toured with Sonja Henie's Hollywood Ice Revue and Holiday On Ice in the forties and fifties. His obituary in the "Bay Area Reporter" mentioned that he was "widely known in San Francisco's gay community for his association with the Round Up and Endup bars".
1987 - San Francisco gay bar The Pilsner Inn holds a Sonja Henie lookalike pageant as part of its Norwegian Independence Day Party.
Tracy Wilson and Rob McCall
1988 - Brian Boitano, Brian Orser and Rob McCall won gold, silver and bronze medals at the Winter Olympic Games in Calgary.
1988 - America's Mark Mitchell and Sweden's Peter Johansson met while competing against each other at the Novarat Trophy in Budapest. They went on to become an on and off-ice power couple, teaching their Mitchell Johansson Method to a host of champions at the historic Skating Club of Boston.
1989 - In his acceptance speech as USFSA President, Hugh Graham complained of "the mixed image of the sport and the very real difficulty of attracting more participation by young men." The same year, Graham suggested making rule changes surrounding men's costuming and putting a stop to giving men bouquets of flowers on the podium.
1991 - The International Gay Figure Skating Union was founded in New York by Laura Moore and Arthur Luiz. By the late nineties, the Union had members from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Great Britain, Israel and the United States.
1992 – Canadian Bronze Medallist Matthew Hall was one of the first elite Canadian athletes to publicly come out during their competitive career.
Trevor Kruse and Darren Singbeil's program about the military's 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy at the 1994 Gay Games
1994 - Figure skating was included in the Gay Games for the first time. Charles Sinek, the winner of one of the same-sex ice dancing events, went on to win four consecutive pewter medals in senior ice dancing at the U.S. Championships.
1994 - Gender bending programs are favourites with LGBTQ+ fans. Katarina Witt dresses as Robin Hood; Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler trade places in "Patricia The Stripper".
1994 – U.S. Junior Champion Doug Mattis came out publicly and gave two exhibitions during the first Gay Games to feature figure skating competitions. Two years later, his story was featured in "The Advocate".
Doug Mattis and Dorothy Helium
1994 - After leaving a restaurant with a friend, San Francisco skating coach Victor Rohana was the victim of a hate crime. He was followed by two men in a jeep who yelled "You fuckin' faggot!" and shot him. He suffered serious injuries and a fund was set up to assist with his medical bills, which exceeded ninety thousand dollars.
1994 - Fiona Cunningham-Reid's film "Thin Ice" was a romantic drama about two women who joined forces to compete as figure skaters in the Gay Games and fell in love.
Robin Cousins as Frank-N-Furter
1995 - Olympic Gold Medallist Robin Cousins traded his skates for stilettos when he took the stage as Frank-N-Furter in a West End production of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". Cousins later married his partner in a civil ceremony.
1995 - For the first time, figure skating competitions were included in Team Seattle's Annual Gay/Lesbian Winter Sports Festival Slide For Pride.
1996 - Rudy Galindo won the U.S. senior men's title in San Jose, California. He came out publicly shortly before winning the title. That same year, Rudy was the guest speaker at the 10th Annual AIDS Walk San Francisco.
1996 - A year after the landmark decision of the Supreme Court of Canada that sexual orientation was constitutionally protected under the equality clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Pride flags were displayed at an ISU Championship for the first time, at the World Championships in Edmonton.
1996 - Out skater Jay Kobayashi of Silicon Valley, California won a gold medal at the U.S. Adult Championships in Lake Placid. Kobayashi's skating exploits were regularly featured in the "Bay Area Reporter".
1997 - "Skates Of Pride" was presented at the Ice Theatre Of New York's Ice Rink not long after the city's Pride Parade. Among the performers were Doug Mattis, Angelo D'Agostino and Martin Marceau.
1997 - Jennifer Lyon's "The Strong And The Sequined" made its debut on the RSSIF Usenet newsgroup. It was the first internet skating serial to feature several LGBTQ+ characters.
1998 - Lorrie Kim launched Rainbow Ice, the first site on the World Wide Web dedicated to promoting LGBTQ+ figure skaters.
1998 – Greg Wittrock introduced his skating/drag persona Whorita to mainstream audiences in the Show Act category at the first American Open Pro Figure Skating Championships. Whorita was prominently featured in Wittrock's ice theatre production "Freezer Burn", which debuted just days before the 2001 New York City Pride Parade.
1998 - "Spectrum On Ice", a benefit for the charity Under One Roof, was held in Oakland, California. Angelo D'Agostino and Don Corbiell's similar pairs performance was a highlight.
Katarina Witt and Brian Orser. Photo courtesy Toronto Public Library, from Toronto Star Photographic Archive. Reproduced for educational purposes under license permission.
1998 – World Champion Brian Orser was outed when his former partner sued him for palimony. He lost a legal battle to stop public disclosure. In an affidavit, he wrote that he believed it was "highly likely that if... allegations [that I am gay] were made public, I would not be invited to return to a number of major ice shows. In hindsight, I may have overreacted in trying to protect my privacy."
1998 - Due to sanctioning issues, the figure skating competition at the Gay Games in Amsterdam was turned into a series of "public practices".
1999 - Rudy Galindo made a cameo appearance on the Emmy award winning comedy series "Will And Grace".
2000 - Canadian scholar Samantha King's thesis "Consuming Compassion: AIDS, Figure Skating and Canadian Identity" was one of the first academic works to explore the impact of the LGBTQ+ community in figure skating.
Advertisement for the film "Ma vraie vie à Rouen"
2001 - Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau's film "Ma vraie vie à Rouen" told the coming-of-age story of a gay figure skater.
2001 - Canadian Champion Emanuel Sandhu appeared on the front cover of LGBTQ+ magazine "Xtra! West".
2003 - "My mother used to say that there are no strangers, only friends you haven't met yet. She's now in a maximum security twilight home in Australia."... Thom Mullins earned a silver medal at the U.S. Adult Championships with a skating/drag performance impersonating the spooky Dame Edna Everage.
2003 - Ben Tyler's book "Gay Blades" was published. The book highlighted the backstage stories and sexual exploits of a skater touring with a fictional ice revue. Reviewer Robert Julian bemoaned, "Trashy gay novels, like the ones Jackie Collins write, pop up everywhere these days."
Cover of Ben Tyler's book "Gay Blades"
2006 – Randy Gardner came out publicly in a feature in the "Los Angeles Times". Gardner later shared his personal story in the documentary "Go Figure".
2006 - Figure skating competitions were included in the first World OutGames in Montreal.
2006 - Figure skating competitions were included in the Gay Games in Chicago. Among the medallists were Edward Vancampen, Franklyn Singley, Amy Entwistle and Josh Figurido.
Jamie Silverstein and Ryan O'Meara
2008 – U.S. Olympian Ryan O'Meara came out publicly. His story was featured on Gay.com and "Outsports".
2009 - Skate Canada was criticized for messaging about making figure skating in Canada more "tough", in an attempt to attract more young men to the sport. Many perceived this as being anti-gay. Skate Canada's CEO denied any campaign to 'toughen up the sport' even existed.
2010 - Eddie McGuire and Mick Molloy came under fire for making homophobic comments while working as figure skating commentators for Channel Nine in Australia during the Winter Olympic Games. At one point during the coverage, Molloy said, "They don't leave anything in the locker room, these blokes, do they?" McGuire responded, "They don't leave anything in the closet either, do they?" They described another man's costume as "a bit of Broke Back".
2010 - The It Gets Better Project was founded in New York. In the years that follow, countless skaters share their #ItGetsBetter stories on social media. Few LGBTQ+ skaters made it through their school years without being bullied.
Promotional material for the 2010 Gay Games in Germany
2010 - The figure skating competitions at the Gay Games in Cologne, Germany drew one of the largest entries yet. The winners included Barbara Jaujou and Cecile Husson, Bettina Keil and Andreas Wagner.
2011 - Athlete Ally, a non-profit LGBTQ+ sport advocacy group was founded in New York. U.S. pairs skater Jimmy Morgan, who came out a year later, became one of the group's Ambassadors.
2011 - Mary Louise Adams' book "Artistic Impressions: Figure Skating, Masculinity, and the Limits of Sport" did a fantastic job of exploring issues of gender and sexuality in figure skating.
2011 – The Ice Theatre Of New York had a float in the New York Pride Parade, complete with skaters performing on plastic ice.
2011 – Johnny Weir came out publicly in his autobiography "Welcome To My World". That year, he is named the Grand Marshal of the Los Angeles Pride Parade. A Washington sports writer once called him "relentlessly" flamboyant.
Christopher Mabee, Filip Stiller and Jeffrey Buttle
2012 – World Champion Jeffrey Buttle acknowledged that he was gay publicly in a feature in Toronto Gay Hockey Association's magazine.
2012 – Olympian Matt Savoie married his partner in Sturbridge, Massachusetts.
Editorial cartoon from "The Daily Trojan" reflecting on how hosting an Olympic Games in Russia neglected the safety of LGBTQ+ athletes. Photo courtesy University of Southern California Libraries.
2013 – Activists and athletes alike voiced their concerns about Russia's limits on LGBTQ+ rights in the lead-up to the Sochi Olympics. When he was named to the U.S. Delegation to the Games by President Barack Obama, Brian Boitano came out in an unplanned statement. He received words of encouragement from Olympic Gold Medallists Dick Button and Carol Heiss Jenkins.
2014 - Over seventy categories were included in the figure skating competitions at the Gay Games in Cleveland. The winners included J. Scott Driscoll and the ensemble Three Babes and a Blind Guy.
2014 - Blair Braverman's Buzzfeed article "Why Is The World's Gayest Sport Stuck In The Closet?" went viral.
2014 – Daniel Donigan, the last-place finisher in the junior ice dance event at the 2009 U.S. Championships, reinvented himself as the fabulous drag queen MILK and earned legions of fans as a contestant on RuPaul's Drag Race.
Eric Radford and Luis Fenero. Photo courtesy "Outsports" magazine.
2014 – Eric Radford came out in an interview with "Outsports" magazine. Later that season, he won a second World title, making him the first openly gay figure skater to win an ISU Championship.
2014 – U.S. Champion and Olympian Russ Witherby and Disney On Ice star turned fashion designer Michael Kuluva tied the knot in Los Angeles.
2014 – The Canadian Olympic Committee collaborated with Egale Canada and You Can Play to launch the #OneTeam initiative. Eric Radford and ally Dylan Moscovitch were named ambassadors to the program which aims to bolster inclusivity in Canadian sport.
2015 - In the lead-up to the 2016 Canadian Championships, the Halifax Pride Committee presented "Queers On Ice", an LGBTQ+ public skate on the Emera Oval.
2015 – Adam Rippon came out in an interview with Amy Rosewater in "Skating" magazine.
2016 - Spanish Olympian Javier Raya publicly came out by sharing a photo with his partner on Instagram.
2017 - Canadian LGBTQ+ Olympian Shawn Sawyer took center stage in Cirque du Soleil's first ice production "Crystal".
Shawn Sawyer
2017 – Olympic Bronze Medallist Timothy Goebel married his partner in Rhode Island.
2017 – Swiss Olympian Jamal Othman and French ice dance coach Romain Haguenauer married in Montreal.
2017 - Skate Canada joined the LGBTQI2S Sport Inclusion Task Force.
Poster advertising a Baltimore screening of "The Ice King"
2018 - James Erskine's brilliant documentary "The Ice King" highlights the story of Olympic Gold Medallist John Curry.
2018 - Fifty-eight medals were awarded for the figure skating events at the Gay Games in Paris. The winners included Alexandra Ievleva, Michael Solonoski and Mauro Bruni.
2018 – Karina Manta came out as bisexual. The following year, Manta and partner Joe Johnson made history as the first openly LGBTQ+ ice dance duo to compete at the U.S. Championships. Their free dance based on LGBTQ+ icon's Annie Lennox's hit "Sweet Dreams" earned a standing ovation.
Karina Manta and Joe Johnson's "Sweet Dreams" free dance from the 2019 U.S. Championships
2018 – Adam Rippon made history as the first openly gay Olympic figure skater from the United States and the first gay man to win Dancing With The Stars. He served as the Grand Marshal of the Celebrity Cruises Pride At Sea cruise.
2018 – Jorik Hendrickx came out publicly in an interview in the Belgian LGBTQ+ magazine "ZiZo". Scott Dyer talked about coming out and his journey as a gay skater on "Outsports".
2019 - Skate Canada implemented its Trans Inclusion Policy "to ensure that Skate Canada has a diverse and inclusive, barrier-free environment where every employee, Board member, skater, official, coach, volunteer, and affiliate organizations of Skate Canada feels valued, respected and supported."
2019 – Timothy LeDuc won the U.S. senior pairs title. They are the first openly LGBTQ+ pairs skater to win a gold medal at the U.S. Championships.
Amber Glenn
2019 - Amber Glenn came out as bisexual/pansexual in an interview with the "Dallas Voice". Rachel Parsons came out as bisexual via a Tweet.
2019 – U.S. Junior Champion Eliot Halverson came out as non-binary in an Instagram post. Two years later, U.S. Figure Skating featured her story as part of its Centenary celebrations.
2020 - The International Skating Union revised its Code Of Ethics to protect skaters from facing discrimination because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics. Previously, the amended article had stated, "Persons subject to this Code of Ethics shall not discriminate in any kind against anyone on the basis of reasons such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status, or athletic ability."
Jeremy Abbott's interview on SkateProud
2020 – Olympic Medallists Jeremy Abbott and Guillaume Cizeron came out publicly.
2020 - On National Coming Out Day, Kelly Rippon shared a touching video message for her son Adam through Good Morning America's digital platforms.
2020 - SkateProud chat launched on YouTube and Instagram Live. The videocast presents a series of wonderful interviews with LGBTQ+ figure skaters and allies past and present. Guests included Guillaume Cizeron, Eric Radford, Rachel Nevares, Shawn Sawyer and Amber Glenn.
Colin Ratushniak
2020 – Dancing On Ice star Colin Ratushniak was elected mayor of the town of La Ronge, Saskatchewan. He is the town's first openly gay mayor.
2021 – Amber Glenn made history as the first openly pansexual skater to win a medal at the U.S. Championships.
Left: Jason Brown. Right: Kaitlyn Weaver and Andrew Poje.
2021 – Kaitlyn Weaver, Paul Poirier, Jason Brown and Jeremy Ten came out publicly. Between them, these four fabulous LGBTQ+ skaters won thirty-four medals as seniors at their respective National Championships.
2021 – Six Olympic athletes from France, including Kévin Aymoz, come out at once in the Canal+ documentary "Faut qu’on parle".
2021 - Cordero Zuckerman, the 2010 Pacific Coast novice men's bronze medallist, lip-synced for their life as alter ego Denali Foxx on the thirteenth season of "RuPaul's Drag Race".
Denali Foxx on ice
2021 - The International Skating Union released its Transgender Policy to address the eligibility of trans athletes in international figure skating competitions.
2021 - U.S. Figure Skating celebrated LGBTQ+ skating history as part of its Centenary Celebrations.
2022 - The Skating Club of Boston hosted Be Here! Be You!, an LGBTQ+ Skating and Dancing Party benefiting the Boston Children's Hospital Center For Gender Surgery. Among those in attendance were World Champions Randy Gardner and Dr. Tenley Albright.
2022 - Skate Canada updated its definition of 'team' in pairs and ice dancers to be inclusive of partnerships of all genders. As expected, the riffraff came out of the woodwork to spread misinformation and hate about this policy change on social media.
2024 - Amber Glenn made history as the first openly LGBTQ+ woman to win the U.S. senior women's title.
2024 - In her highly-read memoir "Outofshapeworthlessloser: A Memoir of Figure Skating, F*cking Up, and Figuring It Out", Gracie Gold came out as bisexual.
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2024 - The upcoming book "Sequins, Scandals & Salchows: Figure Skating in the 1980s" shines a light on how the AIDS Epidemic impacted the figure skating community in the 1980s. The book also discusses homophobia's impact on the sport at the time.
Skate Guard is a blog dedicated to preserving the rich, colourful and fascinating history of figure skating. Over ten years, the blog has featured over a thousand free articles covering all aspects of the sport's history, as well as four compelling in-depth features. To read the latest articles, follow the blog on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube. If you enjoy Skate Guard, please show your support for this archive by ordering a copy of figure skating reference books "The Almanac of Canadian Figure Skating", "Technical Merit: A History of Figure Skating Jumps" and "A Bibliography of Figure Skating": https://skateguard1.blogspot.com/p/buy-book.html.