August 16, 2022 — Athlete Ally responded today to news that Australian Olympic rugby player Ellia Green came out as a transgender man during an opening address at the Bingham Cup’s international summit on ending transphobia and homophobia in sports, making him the first known Olympic champion to come out as a transgender man.
Green won Gold for Australia at the 2016 Summer Olympics and Silver at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Now he wants to advocate for others, emphasizing the harm caused when discriminatory sporting bans are introduced and how those policies can amplify negativity toward trans and gender diverse people.
“Banning transgender people from sport is disgraceful and hurtful,” Green told The Washington Post. “It only means the rates of suicide and mental health issues will get even worse.”
“I just knew it was going to be the most liberating feeling when I had that surgery and to be in the body I knew I had to be,” Green says in the video above. “That was a bright spark in my mind during these dark times facing demons, but I knew there was light at the end of the tunnel.”
“Athlete Ally sends our love and support to Ellia. He is showing the world that transgender athletes belong at the highest level of sports, and that we all deserve to be our full selves in all areas of our lives,” said Joanna Hoffman, Director of Communications at Athlete Ally. “You have to see it to be it, and now transgender youth worldwide who dream of playing the sport they love have a new visible role model to look to and be inspired by.”
Header photo of Ellia Green, daughter Waitui and wife Vanessa courtesy of Ellia Green