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Mina Margraf

Famous Bis

Mina Margraf is an American gymnast, Junior Olympic National Qualifier, and college athlete.

Mina got her start in gymnastics at the age of two, when her dad was stationed in Japan for military duty. After returning to California, Mina started to compete in level 4 gymnastics in 2012, where she soon placed first in the SoCal State Championships. After finishing the 2016 season as a level 9 gymnast winning first place in three categories in the California Championship, her family relocated to Texas, where she started to train at the World Champions Center and started competing as a level ten in the 2018 season, qualifying for the Junior Olympics Nationals.

After graduating from Laurel Springs School in 2021, she accepted a full-ride scholarship to Brigham Young University and forms part of the women’s gymnastics team. When she suffered a series of elbow injuries keeping her away from practice, she started to reflect on her personal life and sexuality. During that time, her younger sister had also come out, and her courage gave her the impulse to do the same.

She has talked about her experience of coming out in the podcast The Queer Athlete, where she spoke about coming out while attending BYU, a religious university with a well-known historically repressive culture. She mentions that,

It’s definitely hard. It does feel a little bit isolating, because you hear people say things here and there — some offense things that you have to push aside and keep moving on with your life…It does pile up and it does kind of wear on your shoulders. Being in an environment where you don’t feel as supported in that aspect is challenging.

Although she mentions that some of these incidents can be a common occurrence on campus, she says that she has the complete support of her family and teammates, which also gave her the push to publicly come out as bi. Although she mentions that the landscape regarding sexuality at BYU is changing, there is still a long road ahead.

I definitely think they are trying to change the culture. They’re putting in that effort…I think that’s a very positive thing they’re trying to do, but there’s definitely a lot more work that needs to be done.