Soccer Superstar Megan Rapinoe Expresses Strong Support For Transgender Athletes

Soccer superstar Megan Rapinoe expresses strong support for transgender athletes

In a recent Time cover story interview, Megan Rapinoe said  that she “absolutely” would accept a trans woman on the United States women’s national soccer team.

The two-time defending soccer World Cup champion despises policies designed to keep transgender girls and women from playing on female sports teams:

“We as a country are trying to legislate away people’s full humanity… It’s particularly frustrating when women’s sports is weaponized …Oh, now we care about fairness? Now we care about women’s sports? That’s total bullsh-t. And show me all the trans people who are nefariously taking advantage of being trans in sports. It’s just not happening…

“The most amazing thing about sports is that you play and you’re playing with other people, and you’re having fun and you’re being physically active. We’re putting this all through the lens of competition and winning. But we’re talking about people’s lives. That’s where we have to start.”

According to Time Rapinoe believes that questioning transgender participation in women’s sports, as Martina Navratilova and ESPN anchor Sage Steele have done, does harm that reaches far beyond the athletic field:

“I don’t want to mince words about it. Dave Chappelle making jokes about trans people directly leads to violence, whether it’s verbal or otherwise, against trans people. When Martina or Sage or whoever are talking about this, people aren’t hearing it just in the context of elite sports. They’re saying, ‘The rest of my life, this is how I’m going to treat trans people.’”

Would Rapinoe embrace a transgender woman on the U.S. women’s soccer team, even if that woman took the place of someone assigned female at birth? Her answer: 

 “Absolutely. You’re taking a ‘real’ woman’s place,’ that’s the part of the argument that’s still extremely transphobic. I see trans women as real women. What you’re saying automatically in the argument—you’re sort of telling on yourself already—is you don’t believe these people are women. Therefore, they’re taking the other spot. I don’t feel that way.”

Read the whole Time article here.

See also: US soccer star Megan Rapinoe is supporting trans people’s participation in sports 100% US Soccer Star: Bills to Ban Transgender Kids from Sports Try to Solve a Problem that Doesn’t Exist