At an age when many LGBTQ+ teenagers are coming to terms with their sexuality, gay Paralympic medal-winner Hailey Danz was coping with a bone cancer diagnosis and the decision to have her left leg amputated above the knee.
Danz, a triathlete who won her second Paralympic silver medal at the 2020 Games in Tokyo, came out last year at the relatively late age of 29, and said the decision had proved “really liberating”.
“In the past, (my sexuality) was something I was always thinking about because I was using so much energy hiding who I was,” said Danz, who matched her success at the 2016 Rio Paralympics in the women’s PTS2 paratriathlon in Tokyo.
“I was so exhausted from carrying this burden that I became someone that I didn’t like very much … I was short with people, I was snippy, not my normal fun-loving self,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation from her home in the US state of Colorado.
Eventually, she resolved to go public about being gay.
“(I decided) I need to let go of the thing that I’m carrying so that I can go back to being who I am,” said Danz, one of at least 34 openly LGBTQ+ athletes to compete in the 2020 Games that end on Sunday, according to sport site Outsports.
That is almost three times as many as the number who took part in the 2016 Rio Paralympics.
Delayed for a year due to the coronavirus pandemic, this year’s Paralympic Games were an unusual experience for competitors, who had to undergo frequent testing for COVID-19 and took part in their events in front of minimal audiences.
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