Carrying the torch for the LGBTQ agenda

In the Suhr house, we love the Olympics. We love the pomp and ceremony. We love the competition and celebration of excellence. We love the chance to cheer on America. We love the stories of individual athlete’s triumphs, as they overcome hardship or rise from everyday circumstances to achieve global recognition for their achievements. We love the fun and funky winter sports that you only see once every four years, like bobsledding and curling.

And so it’s a sadness when the Olympics are sucked into the gravitational black hole of the culture wars, most recently typified by the Milan hosts’ decision to have the stars of HBO Max’s steamy gay drama Heated Rivalry carry the Olympic Torch in the final stages of its journey to the opening ceremonies. In the words of the New York Times headline, “On ‘Late Night,’ in the Club and at the Gym: ‘Heated Rivalry’ Is Everywhere.” Now everywhere includes the Olympics.

The press release from the Olympics is guarded: It describes the show’s two main characters as “pursu[ing] glory on the ice and at the same time struggle[ing] to manage their feelings outside the competition.” The show itself is much less tepid—it has so much sex it would make HBO’s Game of Thrones blush.

Heated Rivalry, for the uninitiated, is a six-part television series airing on HBO’s streaming site featuring two gay hockey players. The show, in the words of one newspaper’s reviewer, “has a lot of sex in it. Specifically, sex between men. Even more specifically, sex between young men who are ice hockey stars and bitter rivals on the rink but irresistibly drawn to each other off it.” Though drawn to one another, the pair figure out their attraction as the show “document[s] each of its lovers’ dalliances at length and in languorous detail.”

The Olympics’ decision to highlight the newfound celebrities previews the real question that is now front-and-center for the Olympics: How will it deal with transgender athletes at a time of rapidly shifting cultural mores?

As the Heated Rivalry pair proves, the Olympics generally have a pro-“inclusion” lean that perhaps reflects the European values of its organizers. And that attitude was at the center of the Olympics’ 2021 “Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variations,” which will still be in place for Milan 2026.

That framework is generally permissive for transgender athletes. Olympics.com, the official website for the games, still features stories like, “Former Olympic boxing hopeful looks to make history as a trans fighter,” and “Meet the transgender swim star who’s earned a spot on the men’s team,” which introduces “a decorated swimmer who was recruited to Harvard as a female, but has found peace after transitioning to a male.”

The International Olympic Committee, the governing body for the Olympics, announced that it will review that Framework with a goal of having new policies in place by 2026. The IOC’s new president, herself a champion Olympic swimmer, said the new working group would evaluate “protecting the female category."

The world has changed on transgender athletes in women’s sports, as demonstrated most vividly by President Trump’s executive order and most recently by the oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court. Hopefully the Olympics is ready to recognize that change and restore fairness for women.

Perhaps the decision to feature the Heated Rivalry stars was a one-off, a chance to tie together sports, celebrity, and LGBT advocacy made by a mid-level bureaucrat at the Milan host committee who loves the show. But it also is indicative of a deeper culture within the Olympics, a pro-inclusion attitude that is in conflict with the traditional values of many of the IOC’s participant nations and certainly the views of the American people. Put more pithily, I don’t recall the stars of Friday Night Lights getting invited to carry the Olympic torch.

The Suhr family will tune in nevertheless. The Olympics are still a wonderful tribute to the human spirit. And though the bureaucrats who run it may have picked sides in the culture wars once again, all of us can still enjoy and appreciate the experience. After all, the best part of the Olympics is its power to unite all Americans behind Team USA, regardless of party politics or any other factor.