The captain of the Republic of Ireland’s football team, Katie McCabe has spoken about how having LGBTQ+ teammates in the early stages of her career helped her be more confident as a gay woman.
Other than being the Irish captain, McCabe also plays for FA WSL club Arsenal. She came out to the public in 2018 and she recently announced she is currently in a relationship with her teammate Ruesha Littlejohn.
Now, during an interview with RSVP Live, Katie McCabe spoke about how having LGBTQ+ women as teammates when she was young helped her to feel more comfortable with her own identity as a lesbian.
“Playing in my first senior team with Raheeny, I was 15 or 16 years old and starting to play with 28 and 30-year-old women. In that dressing room environment, there were gay women and I wasn’t really used to that.” she said “Seeing them being confident in their own skin really gave me the confidence then to own who I was, which really helped me and I kept that with me. It is who I am.”
Although her coming out to the public happened only a few years ago, last year she shared with GCN and her fans the story of how she came out to her family when she was only 15. Speaking about that story with RSVP Live, she recounted: “When I came out to my family I was 15, which is quite young,” she said. “But when you know, you know I suppose – and I think they did too!”
“It was a great reaction from my parents and my brothers and sisters, nothing changed. I was very fortunate,” she added.
McCabe, together with her sister Lauryn, recently partnered up with Dove for the Dove Self-esteem Project, which aims at helping young people feeling confident in their own skin and at promoting positive body image. The footballer is very passionate about inspiring her fans to be comfortable with how they look and to have a healthy relationship with their bodies.
When speaking about this initiative, she said: “For me to be able to use my platform, along with Dove, is really great and I hope we can spark that change and give people that confidence.”
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