Canadian soccer player and Olympic Bronze Medalist Rebecca Quinn has publicly come out as trans in an inspirational Instagram post.
Quinn shared their feelings towards publicly coming out while also educating people on how to be better allies for the trans community. They wrote, “Instagram is a weird space. I wanted to encapsulate the feelings I had towards my trans identity in one post but that’s really not why anyone is on here, including myself.”
“Instead, I want to be visible to queer folx who don’t see people like them on their feed. I know it saved my life years ago. I want to challenge cis folks ( if you don’t know what cis means, that’s probably you!!!) to be better allies,” Quinn further posted.
Quinn was one of the 40 out LGBT+ athletes in the Women’s World Cup 2019 and has been open about their queer identity for many years. However, this is the first time they have publicly spoken about being trans.
On Instagram, Quinn stated, “Coming out is hard (and kinda bs). I know for me it’s something I’ll be doing over again for the rest of my life. As I’ve lived as an openly trans person with the people I love most for many years, I did always wonder when I’d come out publicly.”
Rebecca Quinn further detailed five steps on how cis people could be better allies for the trans community. These included pronouns in bios, listen to trans and non-binary voices, practice gender-neutral pronouns, vote, and catching oneself when making an assumption about people in public spaces.
In June 2020, Quinn took part in Playing for Pride, a campaign advocating for LGBT+ equality within sport. They used their platform to call out the “policing of trans bodies” and urged people to take action towards tackling homophobia, transphobia and racism.
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