At least 29 openly LGBTQ+ athletes are on Team USA’s Olympic roster this year, with most either playing basketball or rowing. A record-setting 186 out LGBTQ+ athletes participated in the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2021, and this year there’s at least 144 competing. There’s also a number of firsts when it comes to LGBTQ representation this year: Kayla Miracle is the first out LGBTQ Olympic wrestler, and Nico Young is the first out gay male U.S. track Olympian, to name a few.

Basketball

Chelsea Gray

Chelsea Gray will rejoin the USA women's national basketball team this year, having contributed to their gold medal win in the previous Summer Olympics held in Tokyo. Currently playing as a point guard in the WNBA for the Las Vegas Aces, Gray is a three-time WNBA champion and was named the 2022 WNBA Finals MVP. Since 2019, Gray has been married to fellow athlete Tipesa Gray.

Alyssa Thomas

Alyssa Thomas will make her Olympic debut this month, competing on the USA women's national basketball team. Thomas currently plays as a point guard for the WNBA team Connecticut Sun. She has qualified for five WNBA All-Star games and was part of the championship-winning USA FIBA Women's Basketball World Cup team in 2022. Thomas announced her engagement to teammate DeWanna Bonner in 2023

Jewell Loyd

Jewell Loyd will return to the U.S. national women's basketball team this year, having earned her first gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Games. In addition to her Olympic success, Loyd has secured two WNBA Championship titles as a guard for Seattle Storm. She is also one of many LGBTQ+ identifying athletes competing during the 2024 WNBA season.

Breanna Stewart

Breanna Stewart will return to the U.S. national women's basketball team this year, having previously won gold medals at the 2016 and 2020 Olympic Games. Stewart is a four-time NCAA championship winner and has earned two WNBA championship titles with the Seattle Storm. She currently plays as a forward for the New York Liberty in the WNBA. Stewart married her wife, retired Spanish professional basketball player Marta Xargay, in 2021.

Diana Taurasi

Five-time Olympic gold medalist Diana Taurasi will return to compete on the U.S. national women's basketball team this year. Taurasi has been a guard for the WNBA's Phoenix Mercury since 2004, where she has secured three WNBA championships and was named the WNBA Most Valuable Player in 2009. ESPN has ranked her #1 on their list of the WNBA's greatest players of all time. Taurasi is among a select group of athletes to have won an Olympic gold medal, an NCAA Championship, a FIBA World Cup, and a WNBA Championship. She is married to former Phoenix Mercury teammate Penny Taylor.

Kahleah Copper

Kahleah Copper, currently playing as a guard for the WNBA team Phoenix Mercury, will make her debut on the U.S. national women's basketball team this year. In 2021, Copper led the WNBA's Chicago Sky to their first championship and earned the Finals MVP title. She also qualified for the WNBA All-Star game in 2021 and will return this year before heading to the Olympics. Copper is one of many LGBTQ+ identifying athletes competing during the 2024 WNBA season.

Track & Field

Raven Saunders

Track and field star Raven Saunders will return to the Olympics for the third time this year, having won a silver medal in shot put at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. Saunders has been competing professionally since her highly successful collegiate career, achieving first place at events such as the 2014 USATF Junior National Championships and the 2015 Pan American Junior Championships. Openly lesbian and using non-binary pronouns, Saunders has been an outspoken advocate for racial justice and mental health awareness.

Nico Young

Nico Young is a long-distance runner and two-time NCAA champion after winning the 3000m and 5000m at the 2024 NCAA championships. Young started running long-distance competitively in high school, and broke the three-mile American high school record in 2019. At a 2024 The TEN competition, Young ran in a 10,000m for the first time and hit the Olympic standard by more than three minutes. Young is also the first openly gay man on the U.S. track team — in August, 2022, he came out in an Instagram post where he wrote “I have realized that the only reason I never liked this part of who I am was because of what society has told me, not because of how I actually feel.” Young is also a fan of music (he regularly posts his favorite songs to social media) and iced vanilla lattes.

Rugby

Lauren Doyle

Lauren Doyle will return to the Olympics as co-captain of the USA rugby team this year. During her collegiate career at Eastern Illinois University, she set numerous single-game records. Since graduating, she has continued her success, previously serving as captain of the U.S. Eagles sevens team at the 2022 Rugby World Cup Sevens. Doyle and co-captain Alev Kelter aim to lead the team to its first rugby sevens medal this year. During the Tokyo Summer Olympics Doyle was featured in a TikTok video by teammate Ilona Maher, highlighting her as one of the record setting number of LGBTQ+ athletes to compete in the last summer olympics.

Nicole Heavirland

Nicole Heavirland has been involved in rugby since the age of 15, and this year marks her third qualification to join the US team at the Olympics. She competed as a USA Rugby All-American athlete during her time at the United States Military Academy and has played professionally since graduating. Women's rugby had one of the highest numbers of out athletes at the previous Olympics. Heavirland bravely came out publicly as gay shortly after her participation in the Tokyo Summer Olympics, where she represented Team USA in rugby. Inspired by the visibility of numerous out athletes at the Games, Heavirland shared her journey of self-acceptance on Instagram.

Steph Rovetti

Steph Rovetti is one of the 12 players named to the US Women's Rugby team, marking her debut at the Olympics. A career athlete, Rovetti played basketball through college and competed as a sprinter in high school. She earned an MVP honor at the 2018 Club Sevens National Championships and has participated in numerous other tournaments since then. Out Sports has highlighted Rovetti as one of the LGBTQ+ athletes to watch and cheer for this year.

Alev Kelter

Alev Kelter, one of the 12 players selected for the US Women's Rugby team, has achieved a lifelong dream of becoming an Olympian. Reflecting on her achievement, she shared, “I dreamed of competing in the Olympics ever since I was 8 years old, and I saw it on TV.” Prior to joining the United States women's national rugby sevens team, Kelter earned a silver medal at the 2015 Pan American Games. A seasoned athlete, she has also competed at the junior level in soccer and ice hockey. As a member of the LGBTQ+ community, Kelter was among a group of US-based rugby athletes and organizations that declared their support for transgender women in rugby.

Kris Thomas

Kristen Thomas will return for her second Olympics with the USA women’s rugby sevens team this year. Thomas started playing rugby her freshman year of college after having competed in track and field and basketball throughout high school, and made her USA women’s team debut at the 2015 São Paulo Women's Sevens. In June, 2021, Thomas posted a video to instagram titled “To 15-Year Old Kris” in which she told her younger self that in the future she wouldn’t have to “lie about who you love” or feel “so suppressed by gender norms.” In her free time, Thomas has a number of hobbies including carpentry, sewing, baking, rollerskating, and playing video games.\

BMX

Hannah Roberts

Hannah Roberts started riding BMX at just nine years old, and competed for the first time when she was only 11 after having broken her back while riding at 10. Roberts is a decorated BMX competitor, winning gold at the 2024 X Games, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023 World Championships. She won silver at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the first-ever year that the sport was included. Roberts has been vocal about her sexuality for many years, and says that her advice to other LGBTQ+ people is to “be true to who you are.”

Perris Benegas

Perris Benegas started cycling with her brother and his friends as a child, and has a background in the Thai martial art, Muay Thai. Benegas competed on an international scale for the first time in 2018, beating out now-team member Hannah Roberts for gold in the 2018 BMX World Championships. Benegas then qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and is now returning for her second Olympic run in Paris after sustaining an injury a year ago. In May, 2021, Benegas came out in an Instagram post detailing her journey of self-acceptance. She wrote that “for the first time ever, I'm extremely excited to live my life FREE and to be wholeheartedly ME.” In October of the same year, she posted a picture with her partner for the first time, and the two are still together.

Individuals in Different Events

Haleigh Washington

Haleigh Washington is returning to the Olympics for a second round after helping the USA women’s volleyball team win their first-ever gold medal in the Tokyo games. As a child, Washington played basketball for a number of years before transitioning to volleyball in middle school. She is a highly decorated competitor with medals with multiple professional clubs and the NCAA. Washington somewhat unexpectedly came out in November 2020 on Twitter (now X), in which she clarified “I am not cuffing my pants because I am tall, I am cuffing my pants because I am BISEXUAL!!! I just wanna be appreciated.” She then followed it up with another post, expressing surprise that people viewed this as a “coming out”: “Wait I’m screaming, was my tweet yesterday considered as coming out??? I always thought my Bi-Vibes™️ were VERYYY apparent.” In her free time, Washington likes to read, write, hike, and complete puzzles.

Lauren Scruggs

Lauren Scruggs is making her debut at the Olympics as a six-time World Junior Champion and a 2023 NCAA Women's Foil Champion, and 2024 NCAA runner-up. She started fencing at six years old after watching her brother compete. Her head coach at Harvard describes her as “the type of person that makes you sick of winning, because she makes you forget how hard it is.” Scruggs came out as a lesbian in 2021, and her favorite hobbies include fashion, watching television, and listening to music. She is also involved in the Harvard Alternative Investment Club and teaches fencing.

Evy Leibfarth

Evy Leibfarth is slalom canoeist making her second appearance as a member of Team USA after previously competing in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics — the first year that women were ever permitted to canoe. Leibfarth started kayaking at just 4 years old and first competed internationally in 2019 at just 15-years old, when she won gold in women's K1 event at the Pan American Games. In April, 2024, she became the first-ever U.S. woman to qualify for an Olympic Games in three separate canoe/kayak events. Leibfarth is also bisexual, and has known about her sexuality for many years. She said that the first person she ever came out to stopped being friends with her, so she feared coming out on a larger scale. However, she is now open about her identity and hopes to help to make sports, especially kayak/canoe, more open to LGBTQ+ people. While waiting for her turn in the water, you may be able to spot Leibfarth drawing in the Team USA tent.

Rowing

Nina Castagna

Nina Castagna is making her debut as a coxswain at the 2024 Olympics, where she will be at the helm of a women’s eight team that won the gold from 2004 to 2016. Despite not initially planning on coxing when she joined her high school rowing team as a freshman in high school, she has now steered her NCAA team to the top five for three years in a row and helped the US women’s team get second place in the 2023 World Championships. She is also one of the two out LGBTQ+ women on the US women’s eight team. In talking to OutSports, Castagna talked about what it was like to be on a team where she could be out: “Having other out LGBTQ athletes (and great allies) on the team, that I can relate to and feel comfortable around, helps me to be my most authentic self and a better athlete as a result.”

Regina Salmons

Regina Salmons is returning for her second Olympic season after rowing in the US women’s eight in 2021. Salmons was the team captain for UPenn rowing in her senior year and won multiple medals at World Under 23 Championships. Most recently, she helped lead her team to second place in the 2023 World Championships. Salmons is openly bisexual and is one of two out LGBTQ+ members of the US women’s eight team. In her free time, Salmons writes poetry and in college was the editor-in-chief of a literary magazine.

Teal Cohen

Teal Cohen is joining Team USA for her first-ever Olympic games in Paris this summer as a member of the women’s quad sculls rowing team. Cohen has competed on the international stage in both women’s eight and women’s quad sculls races, with her most recent world race being in the 2022 World Championships. Teal is one of two out LGBTQ+ members rowing in the women’s quad sculls, and spoke to OutSports about what that means to her: “I want to be a role model to the next generation of athletes and use my platform to promote inclusiveness and diversity in sports.”

Grace Joyce

Grace Joyce started rowing her freshman year of high school and is now joining the US women’s quad sculls for her first Olympics in 2024. Despite growing up thinking she would play soccer and being a “pretty slow” rower throughout high school, she went on to row in college and won the 2017 Freshman MVP Award at her college and rowed in the World Under 23 Championships for the first time in 2018. Most recently, she competed in the 2023 World Championships with the US women’s quad sculls. Joyce is one of two openly LGBTQ+ women rowing in the women’s quad sculls. She identifies as pansexual, but has expressed that she struggles with labeling her sexuality: “In one sense it’s extremely empowering for me to identify with a group of people who are all going through similar experiences that I am experiencing, but also [is labeling myself] really for me, or is it for [others]?”

Jessica Thoennes

Jessica Thoennes is returning for her second Olympics rowing as a pair after rowing in the bow seat for the women’s eight in 2020. Shortly after being cut from the women’s eight selection for the 2024 Olympics, she went on to win gold in pair trials. Thoennes and her pair partner had only been training together for two weeks before securing their win. She has previously won gold in the 2023 USRowing Winter Speed Order, and won silver in the 2023 World Championships. She also won gold medals at the NCAA Championships, in 2017 and 2018. Thoennes is openly bisexual. In her free time, you can find her in nature hiking or gardening, and drinking coffee.

Alina Hagstrom

Alina Hagstrom is heading to the Olympics for the second time as an alternate and operations manager for the 2024 US women’s rowing team. Hagstrom competed with the women’s eight in the 2023 World Championships, as a pair at the 2024 championships. Recently, she competed in her first-ever international single race at the 2024 World Rowing Cup II. Hagstrom is openly LGBTQ+, and in her free time she likes to hike, ski, and swim.