French ice dancer Guillaume Cizeron, a four-time World Champion who won silver at the 2018 Olympics, discussed his sexuality publicly for the first time this week in an interview with Têtu magazine.
The interview was published days after Cizeron posted a photo with his boyfriend on Instagram, to mark the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia.
Cizeron told the magazine he didn’t consider the interview a “coming out” — since he has long been open with friends and family — but acknowledged it was his first time discussing his sexuality publicly.
“I wanted to share this publicly because it was world day against homophobia and transphobia,” Cizeron told Têtu. “I told myself that by living in Montreal, one of the cities where we feel the most free as a person from the LGBT community, we tend to forget how this is not the case everywhere in Canada and in other countries, even in France. So exposing oneself serves the cause. Over the past few months, I have talked about it with many people who surround me and are part of the community, some of whom are activists, and who have told me several times how far it could have had an impact in this cause. What held me [back] for a moment was the fact that I always considered that we shouldn’t have to come out. I was quite surprised that people made so many positive comments, it made me happy. Despite everything, there were 200 or 300 people who stopped following me at that time, out of 84,000. I have the impression that gay sportsmen are still known to be gay sportsmen. I don’t want to be the gay skater, but the medalist skater. But I think there is still a need to fight so that matters evolve in this direction.”
