Pride House provides a place to belong
PYEONGCHANG, SOUTH KOREA— Adam Rippon couldn’t make it. He was texting with his good friend, Eric Radford, the suddenly starring American figure skater. But Adam was at a skating event, and NBC wanted to talk to him again, and . . .
“He’s exploding,” said Radford, Canada’s medal-winning pairs figure skater, sitting at Canada House, eating chicken poutine. “I feel like he’s so much more fabulous than I am. I feel so vanilla compared to him.”
Radford had been posing for pictures with his gold and bronze medals with children and adults — “my daughter just started skating, she loves it,” said one mother — and let people wear them. He signed autographs. He shook hands. He wore a rainbow Olympic pin, and a rainbow button: 2018 Pride House, Pyeongchang. Radford was exhausted, but he wanted to be here.
Pride House was founded at the Olympics in Vancouver in 2010; it appeared in London as a part-time thing, was banned altogether in Sochi and reappeared in Rio. Here, there was no government support and no funding. And then Canada House stepped in.
“Look at this,” says Candy Yun, a diminutive woman wearing a grey sweatshirt that reads QUEER. She is the chair of the Seoul Korean Sexual Minority Culture and Rights Centre. “Even though we don’t have a Pyeongchang Korean Pride venue, we can still have this in Canada Olympic House.”
It is just a corner of the house, which also has a merchandise store, an athletes lounge, a family lounge and is a party at night, especially after medal wins. There is a goalie stick with rainbow tape, signage and a flag, a place to tape interviews, sponsorship from Sport Chek. It’s small, but it’s here.
Radford, of course, is the first openly gay male Winter Olympian to win a gold medal; he has been joined at these Games by figure skater Adam Rippon, who won bronze in the team competition, and freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy. Rippon has been incandescent.
And of course, Kenworthy shared a kiss with his boyfriend, Matt Wilkas. It aired on NBC.
“It was really like a hello,” Wilkas says. He says he had to be convinced it was such a big thing — he says, “I don’t mean to downplay it at all, but I think I just live in such a bubble, where I’m so safe where I am. And it doesn’t feel abnormal. I think I also had to feel through years and years of it feeling like it’s abnormal, to get to that point. So I have to remember that. Even for me, there was a time where that was not normal.”
Wilkas lives in New York, and Gus has a place in Denver. Wilkas sometimes feels awkward holding hands in some parts of Denver, even now. The Russian government outlawed the promotion of homosexuality before Sochi. Here, being out is bigger, better, more. In Winter Games, Outsports.com counted six openly gay athletes in Vancouver, seven in Sochi. Here? 15.
The first Pride House was at the Vancouver Olympics, and a speedskater from New Zealand named Blake Skjellerup dropped by one day; he later cited it as an inspiration in coming out. Here, Radford does interviews with Korean media, and later Kenworthy drops by with his family and his boyfriend. They get the tour and he also poses for pictures, shakes hands and sees the food.
“BeaverTails! Stop it!” he says, before finding some poutine of his own.
“Obviously it was nothing like this in Russia, and it’s amazing that it was in Van, but I think it’s incredible,” Kenworthy says.
“I think that it’s so important to have visibility and representation, and it may be a small corner in Canada House, but it’s more than nothing, it’s more than a poke in the eye, and I think moving forward it will be more and more accepting, and maybe one day every country will have a Pride House, or maybe they won’t have to, because it’ll be totally normal.”
Four years ago, it wasn’t normal for Kenworthy. He won silver in slopestyle, but wasn’t out. A hip injury and a broken thumb derailed him here, but he says he feels so much more at peace.
In Sochi they asked him his celebrity crush. He said Miley Cyrus.
“I felt like I had a guilty conscience the whole time even though I had just done something I should be proud of,” Kenworthy says, wearing a T-shirt that says LOVE O>ER BIAS. “I mean, I’m a fan, but . . .”
“I would have liked to have (won a medal) here, but even despite that, just getting to be myself at these Games, and be out, and be proud, has made it — I don’t know, a much more fulfilling experience than Sochi when I was in the closet, in a hostile country, lying in interviews, and ly- ing by omission, and avoiding questions.”
“I think he gets to come away from this with that,” Wilkas says.
Radford is posing for pictures when a young Korean man approaches him. He is slender and his hair is dyed an orange blond. He is tremulous, but his smile is brilliant.
“I am also gay, and I am proud of you,” he tells Radford, before darting away. Radford watches him go. His smile looks both sad and proud.
“I could have never imagined that this whole LGBT aspect would have happened (at these Games),” he says. “I just feel lucky that I get to be a part of that.”
The young man’s name is Pill Gyu; he is 30, and wears a rainbow flag on his shoulders as the day goes on. He was bullied in high school; he was bullied during his compulsory military service. He was not out yet.
“It’s pretty tough,” he says. “In Korea, there is no rule to prevent discrimination or hate to LGBT. So you can be fired at work if someone knows you are gay. And there’s no equal rights. We can’t get married. So if I find someone I love I can’t marry him so I can leave my house and things to him.”
Gyu is one of several young LGBT Koreans here, along with some Canadians. He is so happy to be here.
“Yeah, it’s like a movement,” he says. “It makes me more courageous and feel more proud of myself, because macho people said LGBT people are odd and weird and there’s something wrong with them and they are strange.
“Especially in Korea, there is not much place for LGBT people. I can go to club or bar, but there is no other place. But at Pyeongchang Olympics Canada made a place for LGBT people, so I think it’s very nice. I came here, and I can see other LGBT people, and an LGBT athlete like Eric Radford. Less lonely.”
At the entry of Canada House it reads, in part, “Within these walls where those with Olympic hearts come to gather, you are welcomed, accepted and respected. This is your house no matter who you are or where you come from.”
There is a lot to be sad or angry about in the world. But some things are good.