Three-time U.S. figure skating champion Amber Glenn isn’t just on a mission to win gold at the Olympics, but to use the huge platform she’s been given to boldly call out the Trump administration’s attacks on the LGBTQ+ community.
The Milano Cortina Games might be the pansexual athlete’s first time at the Olympics, but that doesn’t mean she’s holding back. At a news conference on Wednesday, Glenn openly criticized the current administration’s treatment of the queer community and other marginalized groups.
“It's been a hard time for the [LGBTQ+] community overall in this administration,” she said, USA Today reports. “It isn’t the first time that we've had to come together as a community and try and fight for our human rights. And now especially, it's not just affecting the queer community, but many other communities, and I think that we are able to support each other in a way that we didn't have to before, and because of that, it's made us a lot stronger.”
Glenn, who is making history this year as the first openly queer woman to make the U.S. figure skating team, encouraged the queer community to “stay strong in these hard times” and said she refuses to remain silent in the face of injustice.
“I know that a lot of people say you're just an athlete, like, stick to your job, shut up about politics, but politics affect us all. It is something that I will not just be quiet about because it is something that affects us in our everyday lives. So of course, there are things that I disagree with, but as a community, we are strong and we support each other, and brighter days are ahead of us.”
But loudly calling out Republicans isn’t the only way Glenn is using her fame as an Olympian to try to change the world — she’s also handing out pins.
Amber Glenn wearing her Pride pin.
Footage still via YouTube KDSK News/ digital collage
Glenn is taking the tradition of athletes trading pins at the Olympic Village and putting a queer spin on it. To help her spread a message of LGBTQ+ inclusivity to her fellow Olympians, the 26-year-old figure skater has been handing out Progress Pride Flag heart-shaped pins and a rainbow one with her trademark “Believe + Breathe” slogan.
“It’s to show representation for my community,” Glenn said about the importance of her Pride pins when she spoke to KSDK News last month. “I want to continue to normalize having queer people in these spaces, that we can be some of the top athletes in the world and be ourselves while doing so, especially on such a global stage when not everywhere accepts people for who they are. I want to continue to move us forward as a community.”
