Heated rivalry and Olympic values: LGBTI athletes and communities at the Winter Olympics 2026

The Winter Olympics 2026 begin this week in Milano and Cortina, Italy, and LGBTI athletes and communities look forward to joining this celebration of sports and its values.

ILGA World will be there, too! Our organisation is among the institutional partners of the Pride House, which will host a packed calendar of events and activities throughout the games. We especially look forward to welcoming you on 21st February, for an evening dedicated to sport and human rights.

The 2026 Winter Olympics return to Europe with a historic milestone. For the first time ever, at least 44 publicly out athletes will compete at the games, honouring the Olympic values of excellence, respect, and friendship.

The Pride flag will fly high in Milano and Cortina. However,  increased digital security measures for those in the Olympic village have already been announced: for many athletes, the inability to publicly identify as LGBTI is an everyday reality, one that sport fans only caught a glimpse of in the Heated Rivalry storylines.

During the 2026 Olympics and Paralympics, Pride House will be a safe, open, and visible space for athletes, fans, activists, many of whom are part of the LGBTI community. Its activities begin between 6 and 22 February at the MEET Digital Culture Centre in Milano, hosting a lively calendar of events and activities curated by associations, activists, and cultural organisations that share Pride values.

In the words of the organisers: Pride House “will be a place where sport and human rights come together, are celebrated, and are valued. Pride House breaks the silence that too often surrounds queerpreviously used as a derogatory term to refer to LGBT individuals in the English language – and still perceived as offensive by some - queer has been reclaimed by people who identify beyond traditional gender categories and heteronormative social norms. Although not universally accepted, it is often used as a catch-all to include many people within the larger community of people with diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, and sex characteristics. More identities in sport, becoming both a welcoming refuge and a vibrant arena for dialogue, culture, and collective action.”

ILGA World will be at the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics, too! We are committed to ensuring that everyone can enjoy the game they love, and we have long been working with leading rights organisations to this extent — including within the Sport & Rights Alliance.

This is why we have joined the Pride House at the Winter Olympics 2026 as institutional partners. Together with athletes and human rights experts, we will highlight why inclusion is essential to a world where sport is an authentic force for good.

On Saturday 21st February, we will co-host an event at the Pride House. Under the theme “When everyone can compete: Inclusion and the power of sport,” we will explore the importance of inclusivity in sports at all levels — especially for transadjective/umbrella term to describe a person whose gender identity does not match the sex they were assigned at birth. More, genderrefers to a social construct which places cultural and social expectations on individuals based on their assigned sex. More diverse, and intersexan umbrella term for the spectrum of variations of sex characteristics that naturally occur within the human species. Intersex people are born with variations of sex characteristics (such as genitals, reproductive organs, hormonal and chromosomal patterns) that are more diverse than stereotypical definitions of male or female bodies. Up to 1.7% of the global population are born with such traits; yet, because their bodies are seen as different, intersex children and adults are often stigmatised and subject to harmful practices – including in medical settings - and discriminated against. More people — and highlight the role of civil society in making this a reality.

Our co-Secretary General Yuri Guaiana and Director of programmes Gurchaten Sandhu will be joined by human rights experts, athletes Nikki Symmons and Valentina Petrillo, with Italian journalist Simone Alliva moderating the event. We look forward to seeing you there!