22 LGBTQ+ Athletes Who Are Speaking Out and Leading the Way — in Sports and Beyond

Megan Rapinoe is a captain on the US Women's National Football Team, an Olympic gold medalist, and two-time World Cup winner. She plays professionally in the National Women's Football League for the OL Reign in Tacoma, WA.

Rapinoe identifies as gay and has been out publicly since 2012, telling Out at the time, "I feel like sports in general are still homophobic, in the sense that not a lot of people are out. I feel everyone is really craving [for] people to come out. People want — they need — to see that there are people like me playing football for the good ol' U.S. of A." Since then, she's been an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ+ rights as well as racial and gender equality, taking a leading role in the USWNT's fight for equal pay.

Female athletes, she told NBC News in 2019, are often at the forefront of movements for change. "We're gay, we're women, we're women of colour," she said, underscoring the diversity across women's sports. "We're unfortunately constantly being oppressed in some sort of way. So I feel like us just being athletes, us just being at the pinnacle of our game is kind of a protest in a way and is sort of defiant in and of itself."

A year after winning a bronze medal at the 2012 Olympics, British diver Tom Daley took to YouTube to share that he was dating a man. "I didn't want my words to get twisted. I wanted to put an end to all the rumours, the speculation, and just say it," he told viewers at the time. In the past, Daley has rejected putting a label on his sexuality, telling The Times in 2015, "My generation shouldn't feel the need to be labelled; we are too obsessed by gender. I am not 100 percent straight, I'm not 100 percent gay, I'm just queer. My generation, I think, are more fluid."

Daley has spoken out about anti-LGBTQ+ laws as well. After winning gold in the 2018 Commonwealth Games, the diver tweeted, "37 of the competing nations criminalise being LGBT+. I feel so lucky to be able to be openly who I am without worry. I hope one day every athlete from every nation in the commonwealth will be free to compete openly as who they are too!"

Layshia Clarendon was the ninth overall pick in the 2013 WNBA draft and has since become an All-Star, a world champion, and the vice president of the WNBA Players' Association. She's currently a point guard with the New York Liberty and an advocate for intersectional social justice.

"So many of us have had to overcome being told to hide who we are by people we loved and respected," she told Athletes For Hope in 2019. "Being a queer person still puts you at risk for violence, harassment, and bullying. It's still difficult to navigate workplaces, religious spaces, and to find community. As a queer black woman, I live at the intersections of being a woman, being black and being gay . . . If we want to be activists, social justice oriented, good allies or even just good people, we MUST make sure we approach the work through an intersectional lens. It's why we have to show up for each other and especially for the folks who live on the margins of society."

Retired USWNT player Abby Wambach is recognised as one of the most successful football players in the world. Before her retirement in 2015, Wambach had scored the most international goals of any player, male or female, in history, though she's since been passed for that title.

After winning the 2015 World Cup, Wambach went to the stands to kiss her then-spouse, Sarah Huffman. Speaking to ESPN about the moment, Wambach said, "I wanted to share that moment with her because she knows all the ups and downs going on in my life as an older player, whether I was starting or not starting. I just wanted to share that moment with her. I have never been ashamed of my sexuality. Ever. I am not going to scream it from the rooftops, but I sure want to share that moment with my better half."

Gymnast Josh Dixon competed for Stanford and, after coming out in 2012, dreamt of becoming the first openly gay American Olympic gymnast. Though he fell short of his goal in 2012 and 2016, Dixon told Out that "coming out was necessary in accepting who I was," allowing him to grow as a person and an athlete. "It was more or less a decision to be a role model and to say, 'You know, it's okay to be yourself, and to be yourself in the sporting world.'"

Ali Krieger is a defender on the USWNT and two-time World Cup winner, and plays professionally for the Orlando Pride. She married USWNT and Pride goalie Ashlyn Harris in December 2019 after being together for nine years.

The pair didn't confirm they were in a relationship until announcing their engagement, a decision Krieger said felt right. "Up until now, we were a bit hesitant, but that was more from a privacy perspective rather than a hiding perspective," she told Her in January 2020. Their friends, family, and organisations knew the two were dating, but Krieger and Harris worried about the sponsorship consequences if they came out publicly. Eventually, she said, "it was like f*ck it, and if they don't like us that's their prerogative and that's their loss. We just want to be our authentic selves, live our lives to the fullest and not feel that in this day and age we have to hide from being ourselves and being happy."

Ashlyn Harris is a goalie for the Orlando Pride in the NWSL and on the USWNT, with whom she's won two World Cups. Along with her spouse, Ali Krieger, Harris is an outspoken advocate for equality across the gender and sexuality spectrum.

Growing up, Harris explained to POPSUGAR in a previous interview, "I didn't see people of my community, and it made me feel like I had to hide, and it made me feel that I couldn't live my truth. I think, for us, that is something that Ali and I strive to do just to create the visibility aspect in our sport and in our life and show that we get happy endings, too."

Professional runner Nikki Hiltz competed at the 2019 world championships and has a good chance of making the US Olympic team in 2021, a career trajectory she says was made possible when she opened up about her sexuality. "When I decided to be who I am, a weight was lifted. I don't think my breakthrough season was coincidental," she told Women's Running, referring to her senior season at the University of Arkansas, when she placed second in the 1500 meters at the NCAA outdoor championships. "I was holding back this part of me, hiding it and burying it. When you're happy and holistic off the track, it's going to translate on the track. That was that."

She's since made her platform an authentic and positive one, though she's not afraid to tell off trolls in the comment section. "I responded to a lot of them with funny comments because it made me feel better, but also to educate," Hiltz said. "Part of me didn't want to give these people an ounce of my energy, but it also open floodgates for positive messages."

Olympian Orlando Cruz came out in 2012, making him the first openly gay professional boxer in the sport's history. "I want to be true to myself. I want to try to be the best role model I can be for kids who might look into boxing as a sport and a professional career," Cruz told the Associated Press at the time. "I have and will always be a proud Puerto Rican. I have always been and always will be a proud gay man."

In 2016, Cruz dedicated a win to the victims, family members, and survivors of the Pulse night club shooting, which occurred a month before and less than 20 miles away from the fight. "At first, I was sad [after the shooting]," Cruz said. "Second, angry . . . because they attacked my community." He added, "I want people to be more friendly, that people accept the community of LGBT."

Leo Baker is a seven-time X Games medalist, an Olympic hopeful, and the fifth-ranked street skateboarder in the world. Identifying as transgender, Leo has become an advocate for LGBTQ+ people and other minorities in the sport of skateboarding.

"In skateboarding there are still a lot of people who are still pretty homophobic," Leo said in a Nike video earlier this year. "Sometimes it's just because they're just like ignorant. They don't know any better." They've talked before about struggling to find sponsorships because they weren't perceived as "feminine enough," and the importance of creating safe and inclusive spaces for all skateboarders. "I just want people to recognise how pure and sweet it really is, to be accepted for exactly who you are."

Freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy won a silver medal at the 2014 Olympics and multiple X Games gold medals and multiple world titles in his discipline. He came out as gay in a 2015 cover story with ESPN The Magazine, saying, "I never got to be proud of what I did in Sochi because I felt so horrible about what I didn't do. I didn't want to come out as the silver medalist from Sochi. I wanted to come out as the best freeskier in the world."

For most of his life, Kenworthy wrote on Facebook, he'd been "afraid to embrace that truth about myself. Recently though, I've gotten to the point where the pain of holding onto the lie is greater than the fear of letting go, and I'm very proud to finally be letting my guard down."

Football player Esera Tuaolo played 10 seasons in the NFL. In 2002, two years after his retirement, he publicly came out as gay on HBO's "Real Sports" and has since become an outspoken activist on anti-bullying and LGBTQ+ rights, founding a nonprofit organisation called Hate Is Wrong.

"It was very difficult waking up every single morning and as soon as you walk through those doors to the locker room, you transform yourself into somebody that you're not," he said in 2019 on an episode of Talks at GS. He described coming out as difficult but "incredible," opening up doors for him to pursue other passions like singing; Tuaolo even competed on The Voice in 2017.