Megan Rapinoe, co-captain of the U.S. women’s soccer team, says she considers herself a “walking protest” and an “f—- you” to the Trump administration.
Yahoo Sports recently sat down with the star athlete to discuss her career, politics, LGBT activism, and life after being inspired by former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protests.
In short, Ms. Rapinoe told the website that she’ll “probably never” put her hand over her heart or sing during the national anthem ever again.
“It would take a lot,” she said for an interview published Monday. “It would take criminal justice reform. It would take the huge inequality gap that we have to be much better. It would take a lot of progress in LGBTQ rights. We just have such a disparity in this country in so many different ways, inequality in so many different ways.”
Writer Henry Bushnell noted that Ms. Rapinoe, who once participated in “roundtables with Hillary Clinton,” experienced an “awakening” in 2016.
“I feel like I’m a walking protest,” she said. “Because I’m as talented as I am, I get to be here, you don’t get to tell me if I can be here or not. So it’s kind of a good ’F you’ to any sort of inequality or bad sentiments that the [Trump] administration might have towards people who don’t look exactly like him. Which, God help us if we all looked like him. Scary. Really scary.”
The soccer star added that President Trump is “sexist,” “misogynistic,” “small-minded,” “racist” and “not a good person.”
She is also part of a class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation alleging “institutionalized gender discrimination.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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