Culture

Ashlyn Harris and Orlando Pride Are Calling Out Florida’s Anti-Trans Law


This isn’t the first time Harris has spoken out in defense of trans athletes. In May, she and her wife Ali Krieger — a fellow World Cup champion and Pride athlete — called out California gubernatorial candidate Caitlyn Jenner for supporting Republican attempts to ban trans athletes from sports.

“Every kid, including trans kids, should have the opportunity to play the sport they love to play,” Krieger told Variety at the time. “Because they want to learn the important life lessons that sport teaches you and gives you and to be surrounded by other young kids and to feel like they belong — that is the ultimate goal for our youth.”

Speaking out in support of LGBTQ+ rights has been something of a dividing issue between men and women pro athletes. Women’s professional basketball and soccer players have been notably open about their advocacy, showing up for the trans community in specific and tangible ways.

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Last December, nearly 200 women’s athletes joined Lambda Legal in encouraging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to back up a lower court’s injunction against the so-called “Fairness in Women’s Sports” law, an Idaho law which effectively bans trans girls from school sports. WNBA player Candace Parker and World Cup champion Megan Rapinoe were among the signatories on an amicus brief.

“There is no place in any sport for discrimination of any kind,” tennis star Billie Jean King said in a statement accompanying the friend-of-the-court brief. “I’m proud to support all transgender athletes who simply want the access and opportunity to compete in the sport they love.”

In March, Rapinoe, who co-captained Harris on the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup team, penned an op-ed in March for The Washington Post urging anti-trans lawmakers to stop trying to solve “a problem that doesn’t exist.”

“Proponents of these bills argue that they are protecting women,” Rapinoe wrote. “As a woman who has played sports my whole life, I know that the threats to women’s and girls’ sports are lack of funding, resources and media coverage; sexual harassment; and unequal pay.”

Meanwhile, it looks like the tie-dyed “Protect Trans Kids” shirt has become a permanent fixture in Harris’s wardrobe. On Instagram Monday, she posted a photo of herself wearing the shirt in the locker room carrying a Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche tote.

“PROTECT TRANS KIDS,” Harris wrote in the caption. “PERIOD.”

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