A Giant Leap: 168 'Openly Gay' Athletes Participating In The Tokyo Olympics

Tokyo, July 29 (TNA) Closeted for long enough, the LGBTQ community is finally coming out in sports world and is being embraced with equal warmth. And so it is not without reason that a record number of "openly gay competitors" are participating in the ongoing Tokyo-2020 Olympics in Japan.

According to a gay website Outsports, which has been tallying the number of publicly out gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer athletes in Tokyo Olympics, the head count of openly gay athletes has swelled up manifold since the past Olympics.

After several updates, its count is now up to 168, including some who petitioned to get on the list, the website reported. The number is heartening for the LGBTQ community as this number is three times the number that the website had tallied at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. At the London Games, it had counted just 23.

For the LGBTQ community this is a giant leap as this also means that the complexities of declaring ones sexual orientation are now withering away and that people are openly accepting the diversity around us.