Megan Rapinoe's visibility shines a light for the LGBTQ+ community
As one of the pioneering openly gay high-profile football players, the 2012 Olympic champion has had a profound impact on the lives of many people.
2012 Olympic football gold medallist Megan Rapinoe blazed trails by being open about her sexuality.
“For a long time, I was the only player that was out,” Rapinoe said, according to Time magazine.
Rapinoe, 37, came out in the July 2012 edition of 'Out' magazine, just prior to the London Games where she would help lead Team USA to the gold medal. Her Olympic career also includes bronze at Tokyo 2020 and World Cup titles in 2019 and 2015.
With a platform as large as hers, Rapinoe takes seriously her role as LGBTQ+ people around the world seek equal rights.
“Just being the only spokesperson and making sure I’m setting the right example, saying the right things,” she said of the time when she was one of a handful of openly gay athletes. “Whether it comes to gay marriage or difficult and nuanced topics like trans inclusion in sports, those are the challenges of just continuing to stay educated.
“I’m not just speaking for me,” she continued, “I’m speaking for a lot of people. I don’t want to make anything weird. Nothing goes unsaid. Speak it plainly. I’m gonna speak it loudly, and I think that helps other people who maybe don’t have the ability to do that, or who aren’t quite in a place to do that yet.”
Megan Rapinoe: Inspiring change and empowering others
What might seem like a monumental moment in Rapinoe’s life – her decision to come out publicly – wasn’t for her in reality.
“It just kind of became like, why am I not out? I didn’t really have a lot of, you know, interaction with media where I had to hide it,” she explained in an interview with NPR. “But it just became one of those things where I did start to notice myself saying some things and not others. And I just was like, ‘What am I doing? Like, why am I even doing that? And why am I not out knowing that it could probably have a really positive impact.”
Rapinoe says she made the decision to come out on the airplane home from the 2011 World Cup in Germany, where the U.S. finished as runners-up to Japan.
She made it official just before the London Games.
And the positive impact is something she still sees firsthand.
“I still, to this day, have people coming up to me or writing me or whatever it may be, you know, thanking me or saying, you know, I’m the reason they felt OK with themselves or I’m the reason their family was OK – or you know, parents coming up to me who very clearly have little budding gay children,” said Rapinoe. “And even if it’s an unspoken thing, they see themselves in me.”
Rapinoe has also seen her impact up close and personal with fiancée Sue Bird.
The five-time basketball Olympic champion revealed how she helped her get over fears about speaking publicly of her own sexuality.
"What Megan helped me understand was that, yes, what I was already doing was great, living authentically,” Bird told Time. “But it was important to say it, because the more people that come out, that’s where you get to the point where nobody has to come out. Where you can just live. And it’s not a story."
Like Bird, Rapinoe hopes that her efforts will lead to that brighter future.
“[Parents] see [in me] a future for their children that isn’t just all about the stereotype that you hear, which is how hard life is to be gay,” she said. “And not to say that life isn’t difficult being gay. For a lot of people, it really is. But, it’s not all bad. It’s not all struggle.
“Whenever I go into a room, we don’t have to talk about the fact that I’m gay or an interview or whatever doesn’t have to be all about that,” she continued. “But I’m very out and proud and will show that and will live a very out and open life.
“I think that’s vital for people to see.”
