Dancing On Ice Winner Karina Manta Highlights The Importance Of Queer Joy: ‘It’s Healing’

In two brief years, Dancing On Ice skilled Karina Manta has gone from last-minute substitute to reigning champion.

The US skater was introduced in as a reserve throughout the ITV present’s notorious thirteenth collection, throughout which various contributors have been compelled to drop out early attributable to accidents and the Covid pandemic.

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In 2022, she was introduced again to the skilled line-up, the place she and celeb associate Regan Gascogine ended up being voted the general public’s favorite couple.

“It was just a dream come true,” she says of her win. “Regan was an angel, and worked so hard. I was so proud of everything that he was able to accomplish… it’s really special.

“I think for us it was really cool too because I mean, everyone was amazing, but we were having so much fun skating together and making up new routines every week. We said to each other, we just wanted to get to do as many routines as possible, because we were having so much fun, winning was just a bonus.”

Before changing into concerned in Dancing On Ice, Karina was greatest recognized within the skating world for competing together with her skating associate Joe Johnson, who joined the ITV present the identical yr as her.

The two are the primary US skating group to be made up of two performers who’re brazenly LGBTQ (“as far as we know,” she provides with fun), which she says units them aside, but in addition comes with its personal dangers inside the sport.

She explains: “We were welcomed by a lot of people and I don’t want to diminish that, but particularly in ice dance, there is a lot of pressure to sort of appear as a romantic couple. Or to portray a sort of heterosexual narrative on the ice. So in that way… I don’t know if risky is the right word, but it challenged a lot of, I think, [ideas] in ice dance.

“There’s a lot of pressure just to portray very specific gender roles. And I think any sort of queerness challenges that in the sport as well.”

However, she provides, “being out brings a new creative lens to the sport, which I think is really cool”.

“I love seeing new things on the ice, one of my favourite things to watch is when you see something brand new,” Karina says. “So it’s really exciting in that aspect.

“And also just for kids in the sport who didn’t have – because I definitely didn’t know a single queer woman in skating when I was growing up, and that was tough.”

To mark Pride month, we spoke to Karina concerning the queer performers altering the world of ice skating, the modern-day queer icon she’s “obsessed” with and the significance of discovering pleasure regardless of the obstacles confronted by the LGBTQ+ group…

This is slightly tacky, however can I say Joe [Johnson, her skating partner and fellow Dancing On Ice pro]. Because Joe was out earlier than I used to be, and clearly he’s my greatest good friend. I believe it was so tremendously vital for me to have somebody near me, who I used to be capable of discuss to about all the things. He helped me quite a bit.

There have been so many issues – the primary time I went to a homosexual membership was for his birthday, and he was one of many solely folks I used to be out to. Just various things like that the place he type of guided me into these areas and took me to reveals with homosexual folks in them. It was good to have someone to carry my hand by means of the method.

I’m an enormous nerd, however I did watch The Legend Of Korra – this was earlier than I used to be out. And I simply wept when it was over, which was in all probability an indication for me to return out, at the least to myself. I had a good friend who was like, “Karina you’re going to love this show”, I believe perhaps she was attempting to inform me one thing.

Basically, it’s an animated present and the primary character is bisexual, and has a relationship with a male good friend for some time. And then on the very finish she finally ends up with a feminine good friend that she’s very shut with. I truly don’t suppose I’d ever seen a essential character in a present who was bi till that time.

When I used to be first popping out, Hayley Kiyoko’s Girls Like Girls was undoubtedly like my anthem. It’s simply so enjoyable, and the music video is ideal. Hayley is aware of methods to make a music video, for certain. I listened to a whole lot of Tegan + Sara too throughout these years. They have been among the many solely [queer] artists that I actually knew of on the time, in order that they’re each fairly vital to me. They’re legends.

I simply watched Hearstopper, and I used to be simply an emotional wreck about it. I’m a sucker for a queer younger grownup narrative, and Heartstopper simply did such job. It was so compassionate and candy. While I used to be watching, I simply stored pondering, “wow, I’m so glad kids have this”.

I’m going to say Torrey Peters, who wrote Detransition, Baby. I’m obsessed together with her, I believed her ebook was improbable. So enjoyable and humorous and compassionate, and clearly very queer. It’s so good, I used to be blown away.

I’m going to say Amber Glenn, who’s a skater within the US. She got here out a few years in the past, and she or he’s simply actually unapologetically herself. She makes me actually enthusiastic about the way forward for skating, I’m actually enthusiastic about her presence. In her skating she doesn’t essentially attempt to match into this kind of heteronormative, inflexible thought of what a girls’s determine skater needs to be. And I believe that’s cool.

She actually celebrates her place within the queer group, and each time she skates, there are at all times Pride flags and bi flags within the stands, which makes me emotional. I like watching her.

Being queer continues to be one thing that comes with a whole lot of challenges. And I like being queer, however I simply imply societally, there may be nonetheless a whole lot of work we have now to do to make the world secure for queer folks. And so I believe it’s vital that we acknowledge that and that we nonetheless have areas to organise and work in direction of making the world safer for queer folks.

And I additionally simply suppose pleasure is so vital. A variety of queer folks have needed to cope with a whole lot of ache, and work by means of a whole lot of ache, and I believe discovering group is the way you heal that. And so Pride is wildly vital to me.

I didn’t develop up with queer group, I didn’t know queer folks rising up, and each time I’m at Pride and I’m surrounded by folks like me, it’s virtually a shock to me – even nonetheless, being surrounded by group, it takes my breath away. It’s therapeutic.

It’s so arduous, as a result of proper now within the US we’re seeing some regression by way of the place we’re at politically, so it may be a bit discouraging when you consider the subsequent era.

I might [tell young queer people] to attempt to at all times make it a precedence to remain hopeful, as a result of I believe hope is how you retain going. And it’s the way in which ahead. And it’s the way you carry different folks ahead together with you.

So no matter you are able to do to keep up that hope, that’s going to be your greatest asset. And simply bear in mind that there’s group, even when it’s not round you instantly, there’s a group on the market and you’ll find it will definitely.

Karina Manta’s memoir On Top Of Glass is out now.