Former U.S. women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe defended Barbra Banda, whom the BBC named Women's Footballer of The Year despite controversy surrounding the player's eligibility in Africa.
Banda withdrew from the Zambian squad for the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco after failing to meet sex eligibility requirements in 2022, the BBC previously reported. Banda was allowed to compete at the Paris Olympics and has become the second-leading scorer in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) this season, playing for the Orlando Pride.
Despite the reported failed eligibility, Banda was still named the award winner while transgender inclusion in women’s sports has become a hot-button issue in the U.S. and abroad.
Rapinoe spoke out in a post in her since-expired Instagram Stories.
"You've thrilled, entertained and inspired us, and the world, all year long," Rapinoe wrote on Friday, via Goal.com. "This is so deserved as is every bit of your success. You stand so much taller than the tiny people trying to tear you down."
The 2024 season with the Pride was the first for Banda, who scored 13 goals in 22 matches.
Orlando was 18-6-2 and won the NWSL Championship for the first time in league history. Banda scored the lone goal in the match.
Rapinoe has been a staunch advocate for LGBTQ rights and trans-inclusion in women’s sports.
She said in July 2023 she would support a transgender female player on the U.S. women’s national team.
"Absolutely," she told Time magazine last year. "‘You’re taking a ‘real’ woman’s place,’ that’s the part of the argument that’s still extremely transphobic. I see trans women as real women. What you’re saying automatically in the argument – you’re sort of telling on yourself already – is you don’t believe these people are women.
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I prefer female award winners not to be men.
She might sing a different tune when she has a dude walking around naked in her locker room, or if she gets sexually assaulted by one of these people. It’s really pathetic the stance they take completely tone, deaf, and oblivious to reality.
Megan is a wannabe man. Probably researching penis transplant info.
Rapinoe betrays all girls born and yet to be with that garbage. She has no empathy for girls who sacrifice their lives to achieve their dreams. Her commitment to bankrupt DEI and trans ideology is shameful. Does she not recall the German boys U15 team beat USWNT? Rapinoe is a shameful propagandist and no role model for our daughters.
Megan is well aware that if they allowed men to do this in her sport, no one would’ve ever learned her name. She doesn’t care.
In Rapinoe’s world she can’t say what she really thinks. Instead, she submits to the man who took the award away from another woman and says, “thank you, sir, may I have another.”
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