The Tokyo Olympics set the record for LGBTQ+ visibility. The Beijing Games aren't likely to break it

The 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing will take place against a backdrop of an environment that is growing increasingly challenging for LGBTQ+ people and athletes to express themselves in

By Hannah Ryan, CNN

Updated 0020 GMT (0820 HKT) February 5, 2022

(CNN)Last year's Tokyo Olympics are destined to be remembered for many reasons. They took place amid a state of emergency in the Japanese capital — declared as the city was dealing with a surge in coronavirus cases — and events were staged with little to no spectators to cheer athletes on.

But the Games made history for another reason, too. They featured more out LGBTQ+ participants than any known previous Olympics.Of the 11,000 Olympians competing in Tokyo, at least 186 identified as LGBTQ, according to the SB Nation blog Outsports — a groundbreaking moment in the history of the representation of marginalized sexualities and gender identities in the sporting world.Outsports reports that the Beijing Games will have a record number of out athletes for the Winter Games at 35 — yet, it looks like those Olympians may be performing in the shadow of growing challenges faced by sexual minorities and their supporters in China.Although the nation removed homosexuality from its official list of mental disorders in 2001, the LGBTQ community in China continues to face official harassment and same-sex marriage remains illegal across the country. Tom Daley, who identifies as openly gay, at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021Read MoreIn recent years, the Chinese government has accelerated its pressure on LGBTQ+ rights and spaces. In 2017, Chinese authorities banned online video platforms from sharing content that contained the depiction of «abnormal sexual behaviors» — which, according to those