Megan Rapinoe (Photo by: Jerome Miron-US PRESSWIRE)
Update: Megan Rapinoe officially comes out as a lesbian.
U.S. star women's soccer player Megan Rapinoe, who will be on the Olympic team, answered "we're out there" when asked when a high-profile player would come out. It was a rather novel way to answer the question. Here is the appropriate part from a video interview with Rapinoe on KickTV (video below):
Q: Do you think we’ll see a high-profile soccer player coming out?
Rapinoe: Hopefully, hopefully, I think that obviously we’re out there. It’s weird. [On the women’s side], it’s accepted with the teams and within the sport but it seems as if sports is that last institution of homophobia. In all other professions, there’s plenty of out professional around but for some reason sport isn’t that way. … It’s sad there’s that there’s still thick homophobia in sports.
Megan Rapinoe (Photo by: Jerome Miron-US PRESSWIRE)
Update: Megan Rapinoe officially comes out as a lesbian.
U.S. star women’s soccer player Megan Rapinoe, who will be on the Olympic team, answered “we’re out there” when asked when a high-profile player would come out. It was a rather novel way to answer the question. Here is the appropriate part from a video interview with Rapinoe on KickTV (video below):
Q: Do you think we’ll see a high-profile soccer player coming out?
Rapinoe: Hopefully, hopefully, I think that obviously we’re out there. It’s weird. [On the women’s side], it’s accepted with the teams and within the sport but it seems as if sports is that last institution of homophobia. In all other professions, there’s plenty of out professional around but for some reason sport isn’t that way. … It’s sad there’s that there’s still thick homophobia in sports.
Rather bizarrely, the interviewer never follows up on what would be a nice scoop for him. He simply ends the segment. AfterEllen quickly added Rapinoe to its list of its 12 favorite out athletes from the last 40 years, saying:
While many speculated (and hoped) that Rapinoe was gay, she did not address her sexuality before this week when she stated “we’re out there” when speaking about gay athletes. Hopefully we’ll be able to watch her excel on the field and continue to be a voice for gay rights off of it.
“We’re out there” is pretty definitive and I echo what AfterEllen said. Quick web searches find Rapinoe linked to fellow player Abby Wambach (Zimbio even has 14 photos of Rapinoe and Wambach together, definitely making a link), so people clearly have been speculating.
It was also enough for one YouTube commenter, who joked: “it sucks that’s she is lesbian. there goes any mathematical chance i might have had.”
The gay question comes around the 5:20 mark:
Here is a cool photo of, from left, Megan Rapinoe, Marian Dalmy, Abby Wambach and Sarah Huffman during batting practice before a game last August between the San Francisco Giants and San Diego Padres. Photo by: Kelley L Cox-US PRESSWIRE)
