A Teenage Toreador: The Armando Rodriguez Story

In Baltimore, Maryland in 1989, Rudy Galindo made history as the first Latino American skater to win a U.S. senior pairs title. Seven years later, he became the first Latino American skater to win the U.S. senior men's title. What many may not know is that decades prior to Galindo's historic wins, a trailblazing Latino skater almost beat him to the punch.

Photo courtesy Sacramento Public Library, Digital Collections

Born February 17, 1932 in Benito Juárez, Michoacan, Mexico, Armando Ramon 'Pancho' Rodriguez emigrated with his family to California via Texas two years prior to the start of World War II. He took up skating after getting an eight dollar pair of skates on his thirteenth birthday. His second time on the ice, he took a nasty fall and damaged several teeth. Rather than give up in discouragement, he traded in his eight dollar skates for a twenty dollar pair.

Armando rose to fame as something of a teenage skating sensation during the post-War era, representing the Capital City Figure Skating Club and training both at Iceland on Freeport Boulevard in Northern Sacramento and at the rink in Berkeley. Though he lived in America since he was a boy, he was a Mexican citizen throughout his skating career.

Left: Armando Rodriguez. Photo courtesy Sacramento Public Library. Right: Bobby Simmonds.

In 1949, Armando won the Pacific Coast senior pairs title with Patricia Quick. The following year, he placed dead last in the junior men's event at the U.S. Championships, eliminated before the free skate even took place. Within two short years, he won the Northern California Inter-Club and Pacific Coast Championships in both senior men's and pairs, the latter with his second partner Barbara Ziem, a talented roller skater. He was coached by Ice Follies skater Bobby Simmonds.

In almost every competition he entered, Armando struggled in the school figures and came from behind with a dazzling free skating performance. He skated with far more 'show biz' flair than many of his rivals, interpreting Spanish themes like Rimsky-Korsakov's "Cappricio Espagnol" and Ernesto Lecuona's "Malaguena" - pieces that were then not the 'old standards' they are today. Sevy Von Sonn heralded his "clever and intricate footwork, his extraordinary jumps and his appropriate interpretation of the music". At the height of his fifteen minutes of fame, he was good friends with actor/skater Tab Hunter.

Winners at the 1952 Pacific Coast Championships. Barbara Ziem and Armando Rodriguez are third and fourth from the left in the top row. Photo courtesy "Skating" magazine.

In 1951, Mexican officials apparently submitted nineteen year old Armando's name to the International Olympic Committee. His application to be Mexico's first Olympic figure skater in the 1952 Winter Olympic Games was reportedly turned down because it was submitted late, and an appeal was denied. At that year's Pacific Coast Championships, he put so much into his free skate that he was "completely exhausted at the completion of his program and required the attendance of a doctor. This momentary lapse of consciousness in no way detracted from his desire to skate, as only minutes later he appeared on the ice once more in the Senior Pair event." At that year's U.S. Championships in Colorado Springs, he claimed the silver medal in the junior men's event but won the free skate, defeating future Olympic Medallists Ronnie Robertson and David Jenkins. One judge had him first overall. He also placed sixth in the junior pairs. Shortly after the competition, he was drafted into the United States Army. He served in the Korean War with the 24th Infantry Division in the 26th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion

Photo courtesy Sacramento Public Library

Armando returned to the skating scene in 1954, while on leave from active duty at the Presidio of San Francisco. Having had little opportunity to train, he lost the senior men's title at the Pacific Coast Championships to Tim Brown by one point and placing a disappointing fifth in the junior men's competition at the U.S. Championships in Los Angeles. 

Armando took a job coaching at the Paramount Iceland rink for a time but soon left the skating world behind to run the La Piñata restaurant with his partner Harry, whom met during his skating days. The couple were fixtures in San Francisco's gay scene in the sixties and seventies.

Kenneth Caldwell, who developed a good friendship with Armando and Harry recalled, "Harry had picked Armando up when he lived in a Berkeley boarding house... Sometime in the 1950's, they opened their first restaurant in San Francisco at 1701 Polk Street. Later on, they opened the place at 1851 Union Street, perfectly timed to ride that street’s popularity in the 1960's and 1970's. With their wealth, they moved from a suburban house in Terra Linda to a large house on three hillside acres in Kent Woodlands in Marin County. Their housekeeper came over and said, 'Well, you boys didn’t tell me you all were moving into a motel.' That home was a shrine to 1960's high gay camp, replete with oil paintings of long-dead non-relatives, low tufted couches, golden sheaf cocktail tables, a swimming pool, and at least one bedroom devoted to storing the stuff they bought and didn’t know what to do with. And there were cocktails, lots of cocktails. Armando had perfect white teeth and perpetually tanned skin, and he loved wearing bling, real bling, diamond and gold bling. With a big silk scarf over his balding head and an unbuttoned shirt, he was a gay character from central casting, but still lovable. Harry, who always stayed blonde, managed the money (and everything else that needed managing). Armando's dream was always to be a star, first an ice-skating star and then a saloon-singing star. Many nights we would sit around, get drunk, listen to records, and then listen to him sing. I think he drank to sing."

Armando could often be found on small stages at his La Piñata restaurants, crooning as a lounge singer under the stage name Armando Jones. In 1985, he even recorded a little-known album with H&A called "Live In San Francisco". Perhaps his most memorable performance as a singer came back in his skating days - at the closing Supper Dance Party at Oakland's Athens Athletic Club at the Pacific Coast Championships in 1954. Harry A. Sims recalled, "To show that he is as good at singing as at skating, our very popular young Toreador, Armando (Pancho) Rodriguez, entertained the crowd with a couple of well-received arias."

Recording courtesy Mark Betcher

Sadly, Armando's partner passed away in 2002, and the last his friends heard, he was living in Kentfield in Marin County, California and suffering from memory problems. Though never recognized for his pioneering role as one of the first Latino and LGBTQ+ figure skaters of note in America, Armando certainly should be.

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.

A Timeline Of LGBTQ+ Figure Skating History

 

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.

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.

Lovers In A Dangerous Time

 Photo courtesy Toronto Public Library, from Toronto Star Photographic Archive. Reproduced for educational purposes under license permission.

As we celebrate LGBTQ+ figure skating history during Pride Month, it's extremely important to highlight the basic context of LGBTQ+ rights in Canada. 

In 1969, Bill C-150 was passed decriminalizing homosexuality. At the time, Pierre Trudeau (who was then the Justice Minister and Attorney General of Canada) famously said, "There's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation." 

Prior to Bill C-150, amendments to the Criminal Code had been passed under the leadership of two different Prime Ministers (one Liberal and one Progressive Conservative) that framed members of the LGBTQ+ community as "dangerous sexual offenders" and "criminal sexual psychopaths" in the eyes of the law. 

Frazey Ford's rendition of Bruce Cockburn's "Lovers In A Dangerous Time"

Members of the LGBTQ+ community could be - and certainly were - harassed by the police, denied housing, fired from jobs, assaulted with no consequences to their attackers, institutionalized, fined and jailed indefinitely... and that's just really the tip of the iceberg.

Things absolutely didn't magically get better in 1969 either - Bill C-150 just meant you couldn't get thrown in jail indefinitely. It didn't mean you couldn't get harassed by the police, arrested or fired from your job, let alone married. 

A glimpse back into the struggles the Toronto LGBTQ+ community continued to face nearly a decade after Bill C-150 was passed. Photo courtesy Toronto Public Library.

It wasn't until 1995, when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights of Freedoms should be updated to prohibit discrimination by all employers, landlords, service providers and governments on the basis of sexual orientation, that there were truly nation-wide laws in place protecting the jobs of members of the LGBTQ+ community. This gave new protections to skating coaches, whose employment with skating clubs was at times tenuous. This also provided protection to judges and volunteers who relied on day jobs to continue their involvement in one of the country's most expensive sports.

It's extremely important to understand the context of the times when you study history... and consider what life really would have been like for LGBTQ+ members of the skating community. If you were Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender or Queer in Canada prior to 1969, you lived your best life underground - at great risk... or you didn't live your best life at all. 'Confirmed bachelors' and 'spinsters' were absolutely a thing... as were lavender marriages. 

Judith Rudd and Alastair Munro

A number of elite Canadian skaters in the 1950's, including Ian Knight, Larry Rost and Alastair Munro, all lost their lives to HIV/AIDS in the 1980's.

Debbi Wilkes and Guy Revell

Olympic Medallist Debbi Wilkes has candidly written about her pairs partner Guy Revell's struggles with coming to terms with his sexuality. Revell ultimately took his own life in 1981.

1955 Canadian Medallist Gordon Crossland's memoir "A Nobody's Dream... Came True" recounted his liaison with Peter Firstbrook, who was Canadian Champion from 1951 to 1953. Crossland also recalled the bullying he went through in school and a potentially disastrous rumour that was spread about him being gay. 

For every sad story that has come to light, there were certainly more happier ones - but most of those were kept quite private... because they had to be 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 the 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.

Pride Month

Happy Pride Month!

Check out Skate Guard's Pride Month page for Required Reading and a Pinterest board of LGBTQ+ Skating History. Stay tuned to the blog and social media for fabulous new LGBTQ+ figure skating history content throughout the month of June.

National Indigenous History Month

 

June is National Indigenous History Month! Skate Guard highlights the important history of skaters of First Nations, Inuit and Métis heritage with an extensive timeline. You can view the special content for National Indigenous History Month by tapping on the side menu bar of the blog or visiting the following page:

National Indigenous History Month

To nominate skaters of Indigenous heritage to the Skate Canada Hall Of Fame, click here.