Gay gymnist
(This story was published in 2005).
Openly lgbtq+ collegiate gymnast Graham Ackerman won the national championship in the floor apply at the 2005 Men’s Collegiate Gymnastics Championships at West Point, N.Y.. Six different gymnasts in all were crowned national champions in the six events: floor exercise, pommel horse, rings, vault, horizontal bar and parallel bars.
While Ackerman was thrilled that his 9.600 edged out the 9.587 posted by Iowa’s Michael McNamara, he rolled his eyes about his production after the meet.
Get off the sidelines and into the game
Our weekly playbook is packed with everything from locker room chatter to pressing LGBTQ sports issues.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today
Last year, Ackerman won the national championship with a 9.687; his career leading was 9.775 in 2002. Ackerman also finished 10th in the horizontal lock after he disoriented his grip and had to dismount halfway through his routine and finished with an 8.812.
The back-to-back national champion had one of the loudest cheering sections in the arena, with his parents and teammates cheering on “Ack” as he flipped and tumbled on the floor.
West Point
Staging the event at West Point watch
By Joey Bonanno
When you envision a top athlete, the descriptive words that might come to thought include strength, power, masculinity and grit. Every young athlete aspires to have these qualities. But when you’re plagued with stereotypes and stigmas of what it means to be gay, many young athletes become scared to be who they are, to follow their dream. I feel the fear of non-acceptance from one’s family and team; along with the desire to safeguard the reputation of one’s sport is a driving force behind the hesitance of gay athletes to come out.
I remember the day I asked my mom to sign me up for gymnastics. I was doing cartwheels and running around my mom’s dance studio. I had an obsession with backflips and was determined to learn one. Petty did I know my longing to learn a backflip would soon turn into so much more. It soon became my life, my passion and the essence of who I am today. I come from a family of four, born and raised in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. I was blessed with incredible parents, my mother, a dance studio owner and my father, a musician. With the influence of an artistic family, the value of passion was always in my blood. Growing up in one of the most diffic
Alex Renkert, a world medal winning trampoline and tumbling gymnast from the U.S. who is gay, is taking this year off from competing and toggling his focus to wedding planning with his fiance.
Renkert and Blake Carter, an Ohio public defender, were engaged last October after dating for five years, and the proposal caught Renkert off guard, he told USA Gymnastics.
“It was completely unexpected,” Renkert said. “We were walking around the park before we were going to go to our anniversary dinner. He stopped me and got down on one knee [with] a Ring Pop.”
Get off the sidelines and into the game
Our weekly playbook is packed with everything from locker room chatter to pressing LGBTQ sports issues.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today
Renkert has won eight medals at trampoline and tumbling world championships and is the reigning silver medalist in the World Games double mini. He says he is debating whether to challenge again but stays deeply interested with USA Gymnastics as vice chair of the organization’s Athletes’ Council, where he advocate for the rights of gymnasts.
A big part of his advocacy is helping other LGBTQ gymnasts thrive. As told by USA Gymnastics:
Renkert strugg
SAN JOSE (KCBS) - If Josh Dixon makes the trim at the US Olympic team trials in San Jose on Thursday, he could also create history as the first openly male lover male gymnast to compete at the Olympics.
Dixon has been dreaming of going to the Olympics since he first started copying his sisters' moves, at age 6 or 7.
"I was trying stuff in the backyard, and I don't know, I just fell in love with gymnastics as a sport," he said.
KCBS' Doug Sovern Reports:
A Willow Glen High Academy graduate who became an NCAA champion at Stanford University, Dixon said he hopes to build headlines with his performance rather than his sexuality when he competes for a spot on Team USA in London this summer.
"I'm focusing on the gymnastics. I could care less about anything else," Dixon said.
There were 10 openly gay athletes at the 2008 Olympics, but there's never been a gymnast who came out before competing. Dixon decided to come out when a teammate told him he could become a role model for other gay athletes.
"It's OK to be yourself and do what you do and the world won't judge you for it," Dixon said.
The 22-year-old said some young gay athletes have hailed him as a role model, but overall the reacti