Iced, iced, baby: The Lavender Tube on Winter Olympics successes and scandals
Beijing 2022 was the best Winter Olympics and the worst all at once. It was the queerest Winter games ever, with a lot of out lesbians, some out gay men, the first nonbinary competitor and queer medalists galore.
But it was still in Beijing, and China has been brutal on LGBTQ people and elided news of competitors from any state coverage.
In addition, controversy over Chinese tennis phenom Peng Shuai continues. While she was seen publicly at the Olympics, she has been forced to withdraw both her rape accusation against a senior official and declare she is retiring from the sport, with no chance of outside intervention if she is never allowed to leave the country.
Nevertheless, the early international outrage over China's human rights abuses was all but forgotten after the Olympics began.
