USA Soccer’s Megan Rapinoe mocked opponents of men competing in women’s sports, calling their concern “bulls***.”
Rapinoe attacked comedian Dave Chappelle, tennis legend Martina Navratilova, and ESPN’s Sage Steele in her diatribe from an interview with TIME.
“We as a country are trying to legislate away people’s full humanity,” Rapinoe snapped. “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 bulls***. 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,” she preached. “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.”
“I don’t want to mince words about it,” she carped. “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.’”
Asked if she would embrace a biological man identifying as a woman on the U.S. women’s soccer team, even if a biological woman lost her place to him, Rapinoe declared, “Absolutely,” adding, “‘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.”
In 2022, President Biden awarded Rapinoe the highest civilian honor in the U.S., the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
In March, Rapinoe ripped H.R. 734, the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act.
H.R. 734, which wanted to ban transgender-identifying males from competing in female sports, stated that “sex shall be recognized based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”
“Today, politicians in DC are claiming to ‘protect women’s sports’ by pushing a trans & intersex sports ban,” Rapinoe tweeted. “Call your Congressional rep today to say women’s sports need protection from unequal pay, sexual abuse & lack of resources, NOT from trans kids.”
In the letter to House legislators considering the bill, 40 athletes, including Rapinoe, wrote, “Our deepest hope is that transgender and intersex kids will never have to feel the isolation, exclusion and othering that H.R. 734 is seeking to enshrine into law.”