MILAN — Amber Glenn grew up in a sport that was always judging her.
On and off the ice.
A sport that likes to fit little girls into neat little boxes.
Problem was that Glenn couldn’t squeeze into a lot figure skating’s little boxes.
She was still in grade school when a judge told her she was “too big” to be a great skater.
She was told she was too muscular.
She was told she wasn’t feminine enough.
She didn’t wear the right costumes.
At 15, suicidal and in “a really dark place,” Glenn finally found a place where she thought she checked all the boxes.
Filling out an intake form as she was checked into a mental health facility, she was confronted with a series of questions, a line of boxes all neatly in a row.
Depression. Check.
Anxiety. Check.
Eating disorder. Check.
Sexuality?
At 20, Glenn would reveal that she was pansexual. One more of skating’s boxes she didn’t fit into.
Over the past five years, Glenn, the 26-year-old Texan has emerged as both one of the most successful women’s skaters in U.S. history and a champion for every little girl and little boy that don’t fit into their sport’s little boxes.
“She is an example for generations of young athletes who hope to start skating or excelling within their sport, said Kurt Weaver, executive director of You Can Play.
At last month’s U.S. Figure Skating Championships, Glenn became the first woman since Michelle Kwan, more than 20 years ago, to win three consecutive women’s national titles, skating circles around the long established stereotype of American skating’s vision of an ice princess, teenaged and straight, becoming the first openly LGBTQ women’s singles skater to make the U.S. Olympic team and the oldest American woman to qualify as an Olympic singles skater since 1928.
Glenn arrives at the Milano Cortino Olympic Games co-favored with U.S. teammate Alysa Liu, the reigning World champion, to check figure skating’s and the Winter Games’ ultimate box: women’s Olympic champion.
“It’s a dream come true for many people,” Glenn said of the Games. “I think just about every figure skater growing up dreams of going to the Olympics, and it’s something that I didn’t really let myself dream of too much because I thought it was so far out of reach. And now being here and on the path to Milan, seeing things could go pretty well, and being ready for it, it would be just an experience of a lifetime, especially to share with the people that I’ve gotten to know so well over the years, and be able to compete alongside them. It would be just incredible.”
She didn’t dare to dream about the Olympics in part because there were too many thoughts filling up her brain. There were her battles with depression, ADHD, brain trauma from a series of concussions, and eating disorder. Too many boxes to trip over. She took an extended mental health break at 15. She had to pull out of the 2022 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, essentially the U.S. Olympic Trials after testing positive for COVID after the short program.
Glenn now skates with the confidence and freedom of a person now comfortable in their own skin. You can still judge her. She just doesn’t care anymore.
“Not only as an athlete, she inspires me but also as a person,” said Isabeau Levito, the 2024 World Championships silver medalist. “She is actually the most genuinely nice person you will ever meet.
“If someone doesn’t like Amber they need to get their brain scanned.”
It’s no coincidence that after years of setbacks, Glenn and her friends and family say, that her skating took off after she came out in a December 2019 interview with Dallas Voice, a Texas LGBTQ website.
“I’ve been very outspoken about the ups and downs that I’ve had in my career, because I want people to know that that’s okay,” Glenn said. “I’ve really had two main ones, I think about a little over 10 years ago now, I had kind of the lowest point in my personal life, to where I didn’t want to be on this earth anymore. I was just really suffering with depression, anxiety and eating disorder. All of it was kind of accumulating under a lot of pressure, both internal and external, but I eventually sought help. I was in a facility for a bit, and I took time away from everything, and I was able to connect with my family, I was able to connect with my friends, and get to a place to where I felt like I wanted to have a future again. And it took just completely stripping down to just survive every day, just wake up and make it to the next day.
“And it’s taken a decade to get to where I am now. But I mean, just I’m grateful to even be here and to be able to live out this dream after having suffered for a while, and I still am working on my mental health. It’s something that’s with you forever. And you know, four years ago, I was in a much better place than I was previously, but I had kind of a career low, which was, you know, getting COVID and missing out on the team. And that was hard too. And luckily, at that point, I had learned a lot from a couple of years prior to where I was able to cope and change, and I completely changed my life. Moved around a team that supports me, that is not just there for me on the ice, but off the ice. And I know that even past my skating career, I have learned so many lessons from them, and I hope that after my career as well, I can keep helping the next generation in figure skating.”
Glenn began skating at 5 at a rink inside a suburban Dallas shopping mall. Within a year she had landed her first triple jump. By 11 she had mastered every triple jump with the exception of a triple Axel.
She won the 2014 U.S. junior title with the highest score ever recorded by a junior woman at the U.S. Championships. A season later, she had checked into a mental health facility where she was told her sexuality was not important to her recovery.
On the ice, she struggled to regain the momentum she had from her U.S. junior victory. Although she would only place fifth at the 2020 U.S. Championships in Greensboro, the competition would prove a turning point. A month after coming out, an anxious Glenn was greeted with an arena full of pride flags.
“I really got my priorities together and not focused on someone I’m not, not trying to be cookie cutter,” Glenn told reporters at the time. “I’m not trying to fill in someone else’s shoes. I want to be a new role model for anyone who is starting skating.
“Being out has brought a weight off my shoulders. It was very scary, and not having to pretend I’m someone I’m not anymore.”
Glenn has also removed a weight from a generation of young athletes, researchers said.
“Amber’s coming out is arguably part of this gradual but measurable change, providing yet another example for LGBTQ+ youth that there is no space they cannot occupy in their uncompromising authenticity, encouraging not only other skaters to come out, but arguably many athletes in other modalities as well,” said Gabriel Brew, a researcher at the University of Hull Centre for Sustainability and Olympic Legacy and England’s Olympic Studies and Research Centre. “Additionally, many will likely not have encountered mentions of pansexuality before reading about Amber’s story, and it is reasonable to assume some might end up identifying themselves with the term — in other words, Amber’s coming out not only advances debates on the ice, but also raises awareness about an often misunderstood and underrepresented sexuality.”
Her success on the ice has only raised greater awareness.
She won her first U.S. women’s title in 2024 after the defending champion Isabeau Levito fell three times in the free skate.
“It has been a long journey to get to this title,” Glenn told reporters afterward.
After becoming the first American woman to win the Grand Prix final in 14 years, Glenn edged Liu for the 2025 U.S. title. Last month she set a national short program scoring record in route to her third straight U.S. title.
“For me, I have been ever evolving for many, many years, and I think probably in the future, when I’m even more confident, lived even more of my life,” Glenn said. “You know, I’ll continue to change, but over time, I’ve really come to accept myself or who I am and what I do, and in doing so, I think my love and passion for the sport has really been expressed more when I perform, and I that’s still something I’m working on, and then I have a great team around me that’s really gotten to know me and wants to bring out that side of me just as much as I do.”
No longer concerned about squeezing into or checking off skating’s boxes, that evolution includes adopting Madonna’s “Like A Prayer,” considered by many as an LGBTQ anthem, for her short program music this season, a song that, like Glenn, remains elusive.
“I feel like it can be interpreted in so many different ways,” Glenn said. “It can be a statement if I want it to be, or it can just be a beautiful song that I enjoy skating to. So I think you can take it however you want to.”
So maybe it tells the story of a little girl who grew up refusing to fit in, refused to be judged and how by taking a courageous step forward was embraced; the little girl who will now skate in Milano Cortino, just as she did in Greensboro, with flags of freedom waving her forward.
Life is a mystery
Everyone must stand alone
I hear you call my name
And it feels like home
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