Basketball star Sue Bird has defended her partner Megan Rapinoe, the U.S. women’s soccer star, who was attacked by President Trump after she said she would not accept an invitation to the White House.
“What’s it like to have the literal President of the literal United States (of literal America) go Full Adolescent Boy on your girlfriend? Hmm. Well… it’s WEIRD. And I’d say I actually had a pretty standard reaction to it: which was to freak out a little,” Bird, 38, wrote in an Players Tribune article entitled, “So the President F–king Hates My Girlfriend.”
Rapinoe, 33, was due to play in the Women’s Wold Cup semifinal in Lyon, France, on Tuesday but in a major surprise was listed as a substitute just before the game. She said last month she would not visit “the f–king White House” if the U.S. women’s national team wins the FIFA World Cup. Trump then told Rapinoe the team should win the tournament before she spoke negatively about a White House visit.
Last year, Bird and Rapinoe became the first same-sex couple on the cover of ESPN’s Body Issue. Bird is an American-Israeli professional basketball player for the Seattle Storm in the Women’s National Basketball Association.
Bird said that while it was hard for her seeing her girlfriend attacked on Fox News, in “all these crazy blogs,” and in her Twitter mentions, Rapinoe had a very different reaction.
“But then Megan, man….. I’ll tell you what. You just cannot shake that girl,” Bird wrote. “She’s going to do her thing, at her own damn speed, to her own damn rhythm, and she’s going to apologize to exactly NO ONE for it. So when all the Trump business started to go down last week, I mean — the fact that Megan just seemed completely unfazed? “
“It’s strange to say, but that was probably the only normal thing about it. It’s not an act with her. It’s not a deflection. To me it’s more just like: Megan is at the boss level in the video game of knowing herself. She’s always been confident….. but that doesn’t mean she’s always been immune. She’s as sensitive as anyone — maybe more!! She’s just figured out how to harness that sensitivity,” Bird wrote.
That sensitivity, Bird said, drove Rapinoe to take a knee during the national anthem, which Trump has also criticized her for. The co-captain was the first white athlete and first female athlete to kneel during the anthem in 2016 in a nod to former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who began kneeling during the song to protest racial inequality.
Months after her first protest, the U.S. Soccer Federation began requiring players to stand while the anthem was played before games. Rapinoe has obliged but has stood with her hands at her side or behind her back.
“The Megan you’re seeing now? It’s the stronger version of the one who knelt in the first place. All the threats, all the criticism, all the fallout — coming out on the other side of that is what makes her seem so unfazed by the assholes of the world now. I think in trying to help others, Megan has cemented who she is,” Bird said.
