A Gay Olympic Pioneer

tom waddell

The number and acceptance of gay athletes at this year’s Olympics was a far cry from 1982, when decathlete Tom Waddell founded the Gay Olympics. As Professor Sonia Katyal explains in a Boston Globe essay, the U.S. Olympic Committee sued to stop him from using the term “Olympics” — and won — while allowing the Crab-Cooking, Alcoholic, Nude, and Rat Olympics, among others.