Right-wing media attacked LGBTQ athletes during Tokyo Olympics

Olympic silver medalist Raven Saunders was one of the LGBTQ athletes targeted by the right-wing media.

 Along with the success of American athletes during the 2021 Olympic games came the success and high-profile visibility of various LGBTQ athletes. And unfortunately with that success came the ugly words and tweets of many in the right-wing media. 

According to Media Matters

Right-wing media are attacking LGBTQ Olympians competing at the 2020 Tokyo Games, including by misgendering, deadnaming, and calling individual athletes a “fascist woketard,” “pudgy, out of shape,” and “an anti-American piece of trash.” 

Media Matters also said the right-wing media especially targeted several specific athletes:

According to Outsports, there are at least 182 openly LGBTQ athletes at this year’s Olympics, “more than triple the number who participated at the 2016 Rio Games.” Several of these athletes have been subjected to right-wing media harassment, including New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard, U.S. women’s soccer team player Megan Rapinoe, Canadian soccer player Quinn, and American track and field athlete Raven Saunders.

I will spotlight two of  the four athletes who were the focus of the Media Matters article and give just a few examples of the ugly things said about them.

Raven Saunders:

Shot-putter Raven Saunders, who won a silver medal at the 2020 Olympics, made waves for her split-dyed hair, incredible performance, and gesture on the podium to represent “all people who are oppressed.” The gesture was being probed “as a potential breach of rules banning protests on medal podiums” but was suspended when her mother Clarissa Saunders died. Saunders tweeted, “My mama was a great woman and will forever live through me.” Right-wing pundits attacked Saunders during her time at the games, zeroing in on her protest and saying it “wrecks the games

.”Fox News’ Tomi Lahren attacked Saunders and other Olympians who protested at the games, saying their protests are a “attention-seeking display” and “crybaby, whiny, bratty stunts.” 

White nationalist sympathizer Michelle Malkin asserted that Saunders is “a sorry example of Olympic competition. You've got one job: win. If you can't cut it, find a different calling, and share your troubles with a therapist, not the world.” 

 Breitbart’s John Nolte called Saunders a “moron” and asserted, “​​These woketards are such woketards; they’re just making shit up now. At least she won a Silver.”

Laurel Hubbard:

New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard competed in the 87kg Olympic weightlifting competition on August 2, making her the first openly trans woman to compete in the Olympics. Notably, after the competition, Hubbard said, “I’d particularly like to thank the IOC, for, I think, really affirming their commitment to the principles of Olympism and establishing that sport is something for all people. It is inclusive. It is accessible."

 Right-wing outlets attacked Hubbard before and after her event, claiming that she “deserves to be humiliated.” (In accordance with the Trans Journalists Association style guide, Media Matters has replaced incorrect references to Hubbard’s gender with the correct ones in brackets in the quotes below.) 

 In a segment called “Olympic Failure,” Fox News host Laura Ingraham misgendered trans women competing at the Olympics and asserted that Hubbard was “shamelessly taking a spot from a female competitor.” 

The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh repeatedly misgendered Hubbard, called her “pudgy, out of shape,” and claimed that she “deserves to be humiliated in this fashion because this is cheating.”

 PJ Media posted an article that misidentified Hubbard and asserted that her presence at the Olympics was a psychological operation, saying, “If you can be made to believe that a big strong [woman] belongs in the Women’s Division, then you can be made to believe anything.”

Let's be clear what we're talking about here.

Raven Saunders not only won a medal, but took the time give a shout-out to folks whose issues aren't being heard. Of course their issues probably aren't being paid attention to because we are cursed with a media partly comprised of self-aggrandizing losers who mistake grade school taunts for intelligent debate.

So what if Laurel Hubbard didn't win a medal. She won something equally important. She made her own opportunity and paved her own way to the Olympics and that's hard enough as it is. Day by day, she made the hard sacrifices  which got her to Tokyo. She may not have wanted to be the first trans athlete to compete in the Olympics, but she was. And now that she has created the road, it will be easier to see a future where trans athletes compete and do win medals. Which, by the way, was done by Canadian soccer player Quinn during this particular Olympics. 

The Olympic performances of all of the athletes targeted (Saunders, Hubbard, Quinn, and Rapinoe) demonstrated more heart, determination, and character than all of the right-wing media combined. 

In contrast, the crowd who have chosen to attack these athletes (the right-wing media) are a bunch of sad sacks who have neither the discipline, nor the talent, nor the physical and mental toughness of their targets. They choose to sling useless insults from the safety of their studios, podcasts and tweets while hiding behind the disguise of having a debate. They are an assorted bunch no-talent, nothing-happening frauds. Pathetic clout-stealers, sad star-smugglers, and low-budget fame-yankers attempting to chisel away a little spotlight from the Olympic athletes. 

That's what you do when you can't earn things on your own. You attempt to steal them from someone else.