Kaitlyn Weaver hopes her coming out story finally breaks figure skating's female archetype

Sylvia

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CBC Sports article by Devin Heroux: https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/...s-figure-skating-s-female-archetype-1.6061918
But now, two years after leaving competitive figure skating, Weaver is tired of doing the dance and keeping up the facade just to be accepted in the sport she loves.
On Friday, the 32-year-old became the first Olympic female figure skater to publicly identify as queer.
"I've reached the point of not wanting to pretend anymore. It really weighed on my mental health to hide consistently a part of who I am," Weaver told CBC Sports in an exclusive interview. "I feel like it's the right time in my life to share that I identify as a queer woman.
"I feel like I need to step up because I know there are a lot of young girls and people in sport who are afraid to share who they are," she said.
Includes a 9-minute video ("In an exclusive sit down interview, Kaitlyn Weaver talks about her journey of coming out publicly, being the first [Olympic level] female in her sport to do it, and the need for more inclusiveness in figure skating.")

ETA that the same video is on CBC Sports' YT channel and is linked in @victorskid's post #5 below.
Anastasia Bucsis' tweets: https://twitter.com/anastasure/status/1403375084132311044
This is one of the most important conversations I've had in my life. Thank you for trusting me, @kaitlynonice. I am so proud of you.
I publicly came out 7 years ago. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would be able to give a platform to another athlete - let alone one of my dearest friends. My heart has a smile on it.
 
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genevieve

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The article has been updated to say
On Friday, the 32-year-old became one of the few Olympic female figure skater to publicly identify as queer.
For many, that may seem like 6 of one, half a dozen of the other, but it makes a difference.

ETA: the above was in reference to victorskid's original post, which said something different

Anyway, I am thrilled to see more queer representation on the ladies side of skating.
 
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AJ Skatefan

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BlueRidge

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I find this quite emotional. There were more than a few times when people talked about whether she and Andrew were romantically involved and if they weren't, he must be gay. I said a couple of times maybe she is, but people couldn't even hear that. Queer women are stereotyped as not feminine, and feminine women are stereotyped as hyper-heterosexual.

Thank you Kaitlin for telling your story. You've always been one of my favorite ice dancers!
 

AJ Skatefan

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I find this quite emotional. There were more than a few times when people talked about whether she and Andrew were romantically involved and if they weren't, he must be gay. I said a couple of times maybe she is, but people couldn't even hear that. Queer women are stereotyped as not feminine, and feminine women are stereotyped as hyper-heterosexual.

Thank you Kaitlin for telling your story. You've always been one of my favorite ice dancers!
I should’ve listened to you! I always thought that it must be Andrew. Good lesson in not stereotyping!
 

Sylvia

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Karina Manta (who came out publicly & memorably via her Instagram video on October 1, 2018) has tweeted this: https://twitter.com/KarinaMantras/status/1403405202980409345
I’ve looked up to Kaitlyn for as long as I’ve been ice dancing, and I know this will mean the world to so many young skaters because it still means so so much to me. There is no feeling quite like knowing you have a community. Thank you @kaitlynonice
:)
 

starrynight

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I haven't had time to watch the sit down interview, so forgive me if any of this is covered in it.

As someone who has closely followed Kaitlyn/Andrew's careers, I didn't really blink too much at this. Perhaps Kaitlyn had been laying a very subtle trail of breadcrumbs for a while now on her socials.

It is notable what she said about not wanting to put a foot wrong. Ice dance is such an intensely political sport where the powers that be can decide on a whim who is 'in' and who isn't. It's not like you can do a quad toe and make the judges score you high, they'll just scale back your GOE and then suddenly 'see' a mistake on the step sequence if they don't favour you. Ice dance could be summed up by that Zoolander quote 'That Hansel he's so hot right now'.

Kaitlyn and Andrew existed in the wash of Virtue/Moir, when Canadian ice dance was all about the dashing, romantic passionate couple vibe. And W/P being very good-looking people, sort of had that Prince Charming and Princess vibe in spades. I recall interviewers like PJ Kwong doing these soppy interviews with them 'pick 3 words to describe your partner' etc etc. I think it was kind of clear what sort of image they had to portray both on and off the ice.

I at least got the impression that dance teams were competing both on and off the ice to have an image that was interesting and appealing to the judges. That sort of image pressure I think really impacted on Virtue/Moir too (and I think contributed to an early retirement from show skating).

So basically, ice dance is such a strange sport in that everything from off ice, practices, political images, judges impressions just end up impacting on the scores.

To take a quote from Brooklyn 99: Every time someone steps up and says who they are, the world becomes a better, more interesting place.
 
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skategal

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The interview is extremely powerful.

A must see.

Kaitlyn’s discussion of the pressure to be a certain way in FS is heartbreaking.

The discussion of Andrew, his support and the wonderful statement he made got me in the feels.

Kudos to them both.:cheer2:

Still one of my favourite teams.
 

overedge

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Re the soppy interviews, I don't think those were necessarily pushing heteronormativity for that particular couple. Ice dance teams competing at that level wouldn't be there for very long if the man and the woman didn't like each other and get along. "Three words to describe your partner" is a much less intrusive question than "so when are you going to get married" which Torvill and Dean got all the time. Now that is a heteronormative question because it assumes that (a) they are both heterosexual and (b) they have some kind of romantic thing going on between them.
 

AngieNikodinovLove

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A little off topic, but Paul Poirier! :cheer:


Yasssssssssssssss

me and someone else on the boards earlier this week were wondering if Paul was about to come out because of his IG posts and stuff. Now my figure skating dream has come true. Will you all please join me in nominating him for PORNY this December finally

How exciting to figure skaters coming out at the same exact time. That’s wonderful
 

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