Image credit: World Rowing
This pride month, and in the run up to the Paris 2024 Olympics and Paralympics, we are celebrating rowers who identify as LGBTQ+. Queer representation is crucial – it allows young people and adults alike to feel seen and accepted, in places where heteronormativity is still very prevalent. More UK rowers identify as LGBTQ+ than the average population (British Rowing, 2021), but homophobia is still, unfortunately, rife. It is no secret that rowing lacks diversity in a lot of ways: there is still a lot of work to be done to make people from marginalised groups feel safe, accepted, and welcomed into the rowing community.Â
There is a wealth of studies that show how important positive representation is for marginalised groups, especially young people. Representation affects how people see themselves, as well as the world around them. The lack of representation acts as a circular problem: people don’t see themselves in spaces like sports, so they don’t take them up, and so subsequent generations lack those role models too. Having positive examples at the top level of our sport will make it less daunting for young queer people in rowing to come out and be themselves. The athletes in this article have become the role models they never had.
As we are in the lead-up to Paris, which will bring a lot more coverage for rowing than the average year, I have collated a list of recent Olympians and Paralympians who identify as LGBTQ+. This will not be an exhaustive list, as there is limited information, and athletes are more than entitled to their privacy too if they do not wish to be out. However, I hope that it will act as some inspiration and hope for the next generation of rowers to know that queer athletes exist, and they are brilliant.
For more information about the LGBTQ+ rowing community, you can read Becca Sproston’s article here: Painting the River Rainbow.
Lauren Rowles
Double Paralympic Champion Lauren Rowles has had a huge year. In March 2024, she welcomed her first child with fiancée Jude Hamer, a Paralympian herself in wheelchair basketball. Lauren races in the PR2 mixed double sculls for GB, previously with Laurence Whiteley, and now partnered with Gregg Stevenson. In their debut season, Rowles and Stevenson have time and again beaten their own World Best Time, and Rowles will no doubt be looking to defend her gold medal at Paris this year. If successful, she will become the first British rower to win three Paralympic gold medals. In October 2023, Rowles won the PinkNews Sports Personality of the Year. On Instagram, she dedicated the award to ‘all the LGBTQ+ athletes out there that tirelessly fight for our visibility and right to participate without discrimination.’ Rowles and her fiancée are both outspoken advocates for LGBTQ+ rights and support, and Rowles is a patron for LGBTQ+ youth charity, Just Like Us.
In an interview with Big Issue, Rowles discussed how sport saved her life after losing the use of legs at age 13. She also spoke about coming to terms with her sexuality, and the bullying she experienced as a young queer person. Aged just 18 at her first Paralympic games, Rowles has quickly become the type of role model she felt she lacked as a young, queer, disabled athlete, and her success in rowing is one for the history books.
Emma Twigg
Olympic Champion single sculler Emma Twigg hails from New Zealand, and has impressively competed at the past four Olympic games. Twigg came fourth at both the London 2012 and Rio 2016 games, and after a brief retirement, finally won gold in Tokyo, the first New Zealand woman to medal in this event. She has qualified for the Paris Olympics, aiming to retain her gold medal in the single scull.
Twigg is married and has a young son with her wife, Charlotte. She has claimed that becoming comfortable with her sexuality was part of her reason for returning to rowing after retirement, in order to inspire others. Speaking with Stuff NZ, Twigg said ‘I realised also the power and platform that I have to help other young people be ok with who they are’. She, along with many other LGBTQ+ athletes, worried that sponsorships would be affected if she came out, but has since realised that it’s important to have people like her being visible and speaking out about being queer in sports.
Robbie Manson
Robbie Manson has become a bit of a poster boy for LGBTQ+ athletes, thanks to his openness and honesty, as well as his OnlyFans account. Manson has previously competed at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, announcing his retirement from rowing before the Tokyo 2020 games. However, he has since returned to international competition, citing a changed mindset.
Manson came out in 2014, and his life has significantly changed since. He says that when he was younger, he believed that if anyone knew he was gay, he wouldn’t be allowed row anymore. Since then, he has won a World Championship bronze medal, several New Zealand rowing national championships, and even beat Mahé Drysdale’s World Best Time at the Poznan World Cup in 2017, a record which still stands today.
Growing up, Manson heard a lot of homophobia around him, and he took it personally even before he fully understood his sexuality. He states he has since found coming out and being open about his sexuality very cathartic – that, actually, his sexuality doesn’t affect his success as an athlete, but that being open about it can help others. He has found this to be one of the most rewarding parts of being an athlete, and that helping other young people going through the same things as he did, makes his journey to coming out worth it.
If you’d like to read more about Robbie’s career in rowing and beyond, you can read Alannah’s interview with him here: Alannah’s Almanac: Robbie Manson on Retirement, Return and OnlyFans.
Katarzyna Zillmann
Zillmann is a very successful Polish sculler, winning various World and European titles across the 2017-2020 seasons, culminating in a silver Olympic medal at Tokyo in the quadruple sculls. She came out as lesbian after winning the medal in Tokyo, publicly thanking her girlfriend over the microphone. However, she went on to say that she had been out before that, but media outlets had never published it. Zillmann is an ambassador for a Polish LGBTQ+ charity.
Poland is ranked as amongst the worst EU countries for LGBTQ+ rights: same-sex marriage is illegal and public opinion is often against same-sex marriage and LGBTQ+ adoption rights. After coming out, Zillmann said that while she never hid her sexuality, she felt the need as an Olympic medalist to use her position to speak out. She said, ‘It was enough that I showed up in a T-shirt with the words ‘Sport Against Homophobia’ and I got a few messages from young girls practising rowing.’ This is proof in itself of the profound importance queer of representation in sport, especially for young people in places like Poland, where the rights of the LGBTQ+ community are still very much at risk.
Kyra Edwards and Saskia Budgett
In true enemies-to-lovers fashion, Kyra and Saskia started off as rivals during their junior careers. They both moved to UCLA for university, and started dating while studying there. Now both successful senior athletes on the GB team, the couple have spent the last few seasons racing together in the double sculls. Saskia went to the Tokyo 2020 games as the team reserve, while Kyra missed out from injury. Sadly, they missed out on Paris 2024 qualification, finishing thirteenth at the 2023 World Championships where the top eleven spots qualified. The couple got engaged in late 2022.
Both Kyra and Saskia have spoken out about their sexuality and how being queer rowers has shaped their experiences. In an interview with Team GB last year, Kyra stated that queerness is a part of who she is, whereas being an athlete is a choice and a privilege. She went on to say that being openly queer in sport is ‘a good way of showing the world that some of the best athletes in the world are queer and you can be anything you want to be.’
Julian Venonsky
Julian Venonsky coxed the USA men’s eight at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, coming fourth to GB by only a second. Venonsky started his rowing career as a lightweight rower, but moved to coxing at the University of California. He states that he ‘has never been in the closet on the US Rowing team’, and thanks his tight-knit teams for making this possible for him. Before his Olympic campaign, he said he hoped his story would ‘inspire other LGBTQ+ people to be out and pursue their dreams.’
Maarten Hurkmans
Dutch rower Maarten Hurkmans came out as bisexual in an Instagram post during Pride Month in 2020. In this post, he claimed he was ‘unapologetically himself’, and acknowledged he was lucky in the openness and acceptance of his family, but that not everyone shares that experience. He said that ‘identifying as part of the LGBTQ+ community does not make you less masculine, or able to compete and win.’ He also observed that there are very few elite athletes who openly identify as LGBTQ+, and that he was proud to be one of them. Hurkmans competed for the Netherlands at Tokyo 2020, coming fifth to the USA by one second, and has now retired from international rowing.
Laura Goodkind
Laura Goodkind is an American Paralympian, having competed at both the 2016 and 2020 Games in the PR2 mixed double sculls. Laura identifies as gender neutral, and has been outspoken about being one of very few out athletes at the Paralympics who identify as gender non-conforming. Before the Tokyo Paralympics, they spoke openly about wanting to help people who might be in the same situation as them, as a queer disabled athlete, and that seeing the successful representation of their community would help people ‘find power in their presence.’ She is now a wheelchair tennis and basketball player, and lives with her partner Jennie.
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