Ash Ericson
1 Articles0 Comments

Elis Lundholm: The first (out) trans athlete in the Winter Olympics

Elis Lundholm is a 23-year-old mogul skier from Sweden. He is the first openly transgender athlete to ever compete in the Winter Olympics. He identifies as a transgender man and uses he/him pronouns in English, but competes in the women’s category. In his recent Olympic debut, the NBC announcers proceeded to misgender him multiple times despite the announcers at the event gendering him correctly. NBC later apologized and cut the footage of his segment, unfortunately deleting the footage of this historic moment. He finished 25th in his category but has made history as the first not only openly trans man to compete, but also the first transgender athlete to compete in the Winter Olympics. At a time when trans people in sports have become so demonized, I think it’s important to see people like Elis compete and prove that we deserve to be here just like anybody else.