Megan Rapinoe slams Dave Chappelle & Martina Navratilova for transphobia

Megan Rapinoe may be preparing to hang up her cleats, but she remains a fierce advocate for transgender women and girls’ right to participate in women’s sports.

Over the weekend, the out two-time World Cup champ announced her intention to retire at the end of the National Women’s Soccer League’s 2023 season later this year. While Time reports that the 38-year-old will “likely play a more muted on-field role” than in years past with the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team in this year’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, Rapinoe’s views on trans rights are far from “muted.”

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Megan Rapinoe is retiring from soccer. But she’s always been a champion of LGBTQ+ and women’s rights.

“It’s particularly frustrating when women’s sports is weaponized,” she said of policies preventing trans women and girls from participating in sports in the magazine’s July 24 cover story. “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.”

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Across the country, state-level lawmakers have been attempting to ban trans athletes from competing in women’s and girls’ sports. In 2023 alone, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Kansas all passed similar bans, and in April the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill that would ban trans women and girls from participating in women’s athletic programs. Rapinoe was one of 40 professional athletes who signed a letter opposing the legislation. (The bill has no chance of passing in the Senate, where Democrats hold the majority.)

Rapinoe told Time that such bans exclude transgender athletes from the many benefits of participating in sports.

“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 said. “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.”

She also took direct aim at anti-trans voices like Martina Navratilova and ESPN anchor Sage Steele, who have both opposed trans women’s participation in sports, as well as transphobic comedian Dave Chappelle.

“I don’t want to mince words about it,” Rapinoe said. “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 how she would react to a trans woman playing alongside her on the U.S. women’s soccer team, Rapinoe slammed the anti-trans subtext of the question.

“‘You’re taking a “real” woman’s place,’ that’s the part of the argument that’s still extremely transphobic,” she said. “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 addition to signing the letter opposing federal legislation seeking to ban trans women and girls from participating in women’s sports in April, Rapinoe also dedicated her spot on this Time’s 2023 Women of the Year list to the transgender community.

“I am only here because of them,” she told attendees at the magazine’s Women of the Year gala in March. “We all know what’s going on in our country with the attempted erasure of trans people.”

Transgender people, she added, “offer us a full view of what it means to be a human in the world. A whole opportunity to be the crazy ass human beings that we are. That’s a great gift.”