Olympian Amber Glenn Says She Got “Scary” Threats for Supporting LGBTQ+ Rights

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U.S. Olympic figure skater Amber Glenn says she has “never had so many people wish me harm before,” after her comments supporting LGBTQ+ rights touched a nerve with conservatives.

After the U.S. squad won a team gold medal in figure skating, Glenn wrote in a post to her Instagram stories on Sunday that she would be taking a social media break for her mental health after the “outlandish” backlash, the New York Times reported.

“When I chose to utilize one of the amazing things about the United States of America (Freedom of speech) to convey how I feel as an athlete competing for Team USA in a troubling time for many Americans I am now receiving a scary amount of hate/threats for simply using my voice WHEN ASKED about how I feel,” Glenn wrote on Instagram, per USA Today. “I did anticipate this but I am disappointed by it.”

During a February 4 press conference, Glenn, who publicly came out as pansexual in 2019, was asked about her take on President Donald Trump’s “approach toward the LGBT community.”

“It isn't the first time that we've had to come together as a community and try and fight for our human rights,” Glenn responded. “Now especially, it's not just affecting the queer community, but many other communities, and I think that we are able to support each other in a way that we didn't have to before, and because of that, it's made us a lot stronger.”

Glenn went on to say that she wouldn’t “shut up about politics” just because she is an athlete. “It is something that I will not just be quiet about, because it is something that affects us in our everyday lives,” she said. “So, of course, there are things that I disagree with, but as a community, we are strong and we support each other, and brighter days are ahead.”

Those comments were, allegedly, enough to send an avalanche of hate mail Glenn’s way. “I couldn't believe the outlandish backlash I received for just supporting people,” Glenn later wrote on her Instagram story. “Of course, I have people supporting me, and I'm not online right now because of it, but I'm gonna keep speaking my truth. I'm gonna keep representing what I believe in and what I think all Americans believe in, which is freedom and being able to love and do what you want. So, I just I hope we can keep going forward and be positive.”

Glenn placed third in the women’s free skate over the weekend, earning just enough points to keep the U.S. in contention for the team gold, which men’s singles skater Ilia Malinin clinched in a dramatic head-to-head final. She will skate next in the women’s singles competition, scheduled to begin February 17.

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) said they would report all “credible” threats against athletes to authorities. “It's a sad reality that over the last several games, we've seen an uptick in abusive and harmful messages directed at the athletes during competition,” a USOPC representative told NPR.

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Since taking office last year, Trump has made sports a significant concern of his second presidential term, seeking to bar transgender athletes from organized sports in general — a demand to which the USOPC gave in last summer. Trump responded to comments from other Olympians over the weekend on his personal social media website Truth Social, calling skier Hunter Hess a “loser” after Hess said he did not claim to “represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.”

The 2028 Olympics are scheduled to be held in Los Angeles, which Trump has reportedly claimed he will make the “greatest games.”

On Monday, Glenn followed up on her earlier posts with a more comical take on the entire affair. She shared a screenshot of a post by popular menswear writer Derek Guy to her Instagram stories. “kind of funny that an olympian said they are here to represent ‘compassion, respect, love for others’ and some people automatically know that's a statement against them,” Guy wrote.

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