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Timothy LeDuc: Figure skater to be first openly non-binary athlete at Winter Olympics

Timothy LeDuc will be competing with Ashley Cain-Gribble in Beijing in February

Skater Timothy LeDuc will soon be seen competing in the Winter Olympics in Beijing as the first openly non-binary athlete. The 31-year-old will be competing with Ashley Cain-Gribble in February and he hopes to challenge gender stereotypes and carve a way for other athletes who feel outside the social boundaries.

LeDuc, who uses them/their pronouns since last year, said as reported by The New York Post, “It’s been a really long journey for me, embracing my gender. I’ve had some amazing people in my life help me through that journey. But I hope when people see my story, they aren’t saying, ‘Timothy is the first nonbinary person to achieve this level of success in sports.’ It’s that queer people can be open and be in sports. We’ve always been here, we have always been a part of sports. We just haven’t always been able to be open.”

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They also stated, “I know that me being here – and being able to be out now – is only possible because of the many great people who came before me. I stand on the shoulders of so many amazing queer people that have pushed their way through this sport, allowing me to be open now.”

As per reports, LeDuc first came out as gay when he was 18. He had earlier also performed with Cain-Gribble and also became the 2019 and 2022 US champions. But this Olympics is their first. Cain-Gribble said, “I think we want to dedicate these performances and this title to all the people that felt like they didn’t belong – or were told that they didn’t belong – in this sport. Many times we were told that, even when we teamed up.”

LeDuc told The Independent: “Ashley and I represent an alternative in pairs skating, a different narrative. Often we see the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ narrative or the ‘fragile girl and the strong man’ narrative,” before adding, “There is nothing necessarily inherently wrong with people doing a romantic programme but sometimes that narrative is centralised in such a way it leaves no room for any other stories to be told, or other narratives or other pair teams are maybe seen as less worthy of points or medals. So, we just like to represent a different way and hopefully make more space for other stories to be told in skating.”

People on the internet have also shown their support to LeDuc with one saying, “nonbinary is actually a gender, not a sexuality. it’s important to bring up firsts like this because it shows other nonbinary people that they are welcomed in things like this. representation matters :).” Another one tweeted, “Really smashing the glass ceiling here because no female figure skater has ever had a gay male partner.” “stunning & brave, tears in my eyes,” the third one added.

However, there were some who seemed not very happy with LeDuc as a hater tweeted, “Is Timothy the tall one or the short one? Or does he also choose to be short or tall, depending on how he fees?” The second one noted: “Nonbinary is nonsense. Just because a man does feminine things does not make him 'nonbinary', just because a woman does masculine things does not make her 'nonbinary'.”