Louisville's Cat Runner, winner of HBO's "The Climb," honored for LGBTQ+ activism
Louisville transgender athlete Cat Runner has been elevating the climbing community even before winning "The Climb." Now he's being honored again. Louisville's Cat Runner, known for her reality TV series "The Climb," has been honored for his activism, including setting up the Queer Climbers Network and co-founder of Trans Climbers Belong. The coalition was formed in response to a discriminatory policy introduced by USA Climbing, the national governing body for the sport. Runner's efforts to improve the transgender climbing community have been spotlighted by the online publication "Them" and he is the 2024 recipient of The Now Award in Athletics.
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Louisville's Cat Runner is best known for winning "The Climb," an elimination-style rock-climbing series that aired on HBO Max in 2023.
Like any reality TV series participant, Runner enjoyed a certain amount of notoriety thanks to "The Climb" but the trans athlete is also known for using his platform to elevate the queer climbing community in Louisville, at Kentucky's Red River Gorge and beyond.
In addition to establishing the Queer Climbers Network, a project aimed at helping LGBTQ+ climbers across the country find each other, the 26-year-old is the co-founder of Trans Climbers Belong, a grassroots coalition established in response to a discriminatory policy introduced by USA Climbing, the national governing body for the sport.
"Conversations regarding race, queerness, transness, whatever. It needs to exist in the climbing community because I exist in the climbing community," Runner previously told The Courier Journal. "That's part of my life. I want to talk about it."
This month, Runner's efforts to better the transgender climbing community are spotlighted by the online publication "Them." The publication's Now Awards honor 10 LGBTQ+ vanguards at the forefront of culture and change.
Runner is the 2024 recipient of The Now Award in Athletics.
Speaking about his activism, Runner told Them, “A lot of the stuff that I do, I’m creating because it doesn’t exist and because I want it, or I would have wanted it.”
Runner and nine other honorees were celebrated on Monday, June 10, at a ceremony in Brooklyn, New York.
Want to learn more about Cat Runner's career? He is one of four transgender athletes profiled in a USA TODAY video series called "In Their Own Words."
المواضيع: Social Issues, TV, LGBTQ, Activism