Here’s where Team LGBTQ+ placed in the Paralympic medal table

The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games have crossed the the finish line, and following two weeks of incredible sport, “Team LGBTQ+” have collectively achieved more medals than ever before.

Queer athletes took home 28 medals in total, including 12 gold, 11 silver and five bronze – three more than at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.

The results follow a stellar outing by Team LGBTQ+ at the Olympics this summer, where at least 175 out queer athletes competed and won a total of 43 medals, ending the games in 7th place.

As per reporting by LGBTQ+ sporting news publisher OutSports – which tallied medals won by out queer athletes as if they were a nation competing in the Games – Team LGBTQ+ finished in 17th place in the Paralympics medal table by total medals, tied with Colombia and Turkey.

If going by the number of gold medals won, which is the more traditional method of measuring results, then Team LGBTQ+ finishes in 11th place, beating out major sporting nations like Japan and Germany.

Christie Raleigh Crossley, Team USA’s non-binary para swimmer, led the individual scoreboard with five medals, two gold and two silver and a bronze.

Other success in the Games saw Ireland’s para cyclist Katie-George Dunlevy win a gold and two silvers, Great Britain’s Emma Wiggs take home a gold and silver in paracanoeing, the Netherlands’ Diede de Groot win two silvers in wheelchair tennis and Brazil’s Mari Gesteira win two para swimming bronzes.

Despite the sporting achievements on display during the Games, LGBTQ+ inclusion in Paris was not without controversy.

Italian sprinter Valentina Petrillo, the first out transgender athlete to compete at the Paralympic Games, faced a onslaught of abuse over her participation.

Attacks on her came just weeks after cisgender Algerian boxer Imane Khelif was thrust into the centre of a gender storm, after she was accused of being trans, resulting in her lodging a lawsuit against high-profile individuals like JK Rowling and Elon Musk for “acts of aggravated cyber harassment”.

During the Paralympics, Harry Potter author Rowling, who is well-known for her anti-trans views, called Petrillo a “cheat”, writing on X/Twitter: “Why all the anger about the inspirational Petrillo? The cheat community has never had this kind of visibility. Out and proud cheats like Petrillo prove the era of cheat-shaming is over. What a role model. I say we give [disgraced cyclist] Lance Armstrong his medals back and move on. #Cheats #NoShame.”

In a follow-up post, Rowling was asked how the athlete was cheating because by “automatically saying that trans people are cheating, you’re associating stereotypes to us that just aren’t true”.

The author replied: “Stereotypes are simplistic/prejudiced blanket assumptions about a demographic that don’t correlate with the facts. I know all trans people aren’t cheats. However, knowing you have an unfair advantage and exploiting it anyway is pretty much the textbook definition of cheating.”

In response to Rowling’s accusations, Petrillo has told reporters: “I’m flattered that Rowling is talking about me. I’ve never even read Harry Potter. I’m told she wrote it but I didn’t read it. I was told that she wrote about a sport where there is no gender. So, I was expecting different behaviour from Rowling.”

In another interview, Petrillo said she is the only trans person to compete at the Games so “all of this fear that trans people will destroy the world [of women’s sport] does not exist”.

“People said men would go to compete as women just so they could win, but that has not happened at all. It is just transphobia,” she told The Times.