Meet The 42 Gay Women and Non-Binary Soccer Players of the Tokyo Summer Olympics

Everyone knows gays cannot get enough soccer/football, and with the 2020 Tokyo Games kicking off its soccer/football matches today, we thought it’d be a perfect time to round up the Olympics women’s soccer gay players and non-binary players. As Outsports has documented brilliantly, there are at least 162 openly gay athletes in Tokyo this year, an Olympic recored! And, according to our research, 42 of those athletes are women and non-binary soccer players, which we have helpfully listed for you below with adorable/swoony photos!

Just a quick editorial note: While most of Autostraddle’s writers are based in the U.S., we realize we have loads of readers around the world. So for this year’s Olympics, we are trying hard to hit the international gay highlights. Obviously U.S. media skews heavily (almost 100%) U.S.-centric, so if we’ve missed anyone that should be on this list, or anything comes up you think we should cover, hit me (@theheatherhogan) or Natalie (@natthedem) up on Twitter, or drop a note in the A+ Priority Contact box (in the right sidebar on the Autostraddle home page) and we’ll try our best to make sure we mention it. The players below are listed alphabetically by last name.

Feature image Elsa/Getty Images / Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images

Andressa Alves (Brazil)

Bárbara Barbosa (Brazil)

Yenny Acuña Berrios (Chile)

Keisha Buchanan (Canada)

Marta da Silva (Brazil)

Rachel Daly (Great Britain)

Tierna Davidson (USA)

Anouk Dekker (Netherlands)

Christiane Endler (Chile)

Abby Erceg (New Zealand)

Magda Eriksson (Sweden)

Sisca Folkertsma (Netherlands)

Adrianna Franch (USA)

Emily Gielnik (Australia)

Lina Hurtig (Sweden)

Letícia Izidoro (Brazil)

Sam Kerr (Australia)

Fran Kirby (Great Britain)

Stephanie Labbé (Canada)

Hedvig Lindahl (Sweden)

Chloe Logarzo (Australia)

Erin McLeod (Canada)

Teagan Micah (Australia)

Vivianne Miedema (Netherlands)

Kelley O’Hara (USA)

Fernanda Pinilla (Chile)

Megan Rapinoe (USA)

Aline Reis (Brazil)

Jill Scott (Great Britain)

Caroline Seger (Sweden)

Kailen Sheridan (Canada)

Sherida Spitse (Netherlands)

Demi Stokes (Great Britain)

Carly Telford (Great Britain)

Daniëlle van de Donk (Netherlands)

Shanice Van De Sanden (Netherlands)

Stefanie Van Der Gragt (Netherlands)

Merel Van Dongen (Netherlands)

Hannah Wilkinson (New Zealand)

Tameka Yallop (Australia)

Formiga (Brazil)

Quinn (Canada)

If we missed any Olympics Women’s Soccer gay or non-binary players, let us know!

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Heather Hogan

Heather Hogan is an Autostraddle senior editor who lives in New York City with her wife, Stacy, and their cackle of rescued pets. She's a member of the Television Critics Association, GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, and a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer critic. You can also find her on Twitter and Instagram.

Heather has written 1718 articles for us.

65 Comments

    • Also, Megan Jones, Celiac Quansah (who are also a couple) and Jasmin Joyce, all 7s (and 15s) rugby players for GB/England/Wales and Alev Kelter and Kristin Thomas both USA Rugby, Portia Woodman New Zealand Rugby, plus two GB female rugby refs (Sarah Cox and Hollie Dave)

    • This is awesome! Can you do this for all the other sports too? Would love to swoon some more

    • Hayley Raso, Alanna Kennedy, Emily Van Egmond, Kyah Simon, Ellie Carpenter, McKenzie Arnold. It would be quicker to name the straight players for the Australian team

      • Right? It’s like Williams and Catley are usually the only ones representing the straights out there. Similar for Brazil.

  3. You missed (or mossed, note typo above) Debinha!!! of Brazil and the NC Carolina Courage. She’s already scored a goal in this Olympics.

    • Sinclair for sure, she’s just never “officially” come out and is very private about her personal life. There’s way more than the folks included on this list, but I imagine Autostraddle wants to be respectful of folks who have not been “publicly out.”

  5. ….and Christine Sinclair (Canada) and Lucy Bronze and her washboard abs (England). And I know deep in my heart there are more.

    • I’ve never seen Lucy Bronze actually come out anywhere. Are you sure? But then I haven’t seen her Instagram either.

      • Awesome! Well, Bronze isn’t on the outsports list so maybe she isn’t at the Olympics this year?

        • She’s at the Olympics and so is Keira Walsh. They are just another example of folks who most people know are gay/queer, but have never made a public explicit coming out statement.

    • Some Tumblr folks (you don’t have to have a Tumblr to view the post, I don’t) have compiled a list for soccer specifically. Their list is a little more broad because since it’s not a formal publication they include many folks who haven’t made explicit statements about their sexual orientation. Bronze, Walsh, Debinha, Alanna Kennedy, Kyah Simon, Ellie Carpenter, Hayley Raso, Mackenzie Arnold, Clare Polkinghorne, Emily van Egmond, Shelina Zadorsky, Leah Williamson, Heath/Press, Caitlin Foord, Elise Kellond-Knight, Jane Campbell, etc.

      The person pictured in Logarzo’s photo is not her girlfriend; she’s dating former Washington Spirit player McKenzie Berryhill.

      Kristie Mewis is also queer; she dated Rachel Daly and has had a very public Instagram flirtation (maybe long-distance relationship?) going on with Sam Kerr for the past few months, after her breakup with Daly and Kerr’s breakup with Nikki Stanton.

  6. I can’t believe Christiane Endler got gay married last May and no one told me! She was such a sex symbol for queer women after the World Cup last time and we all wanted her to catch us in her strong arms like she did her teammates. *swoon*

  7. Sophie Schmidt on team Canada! I know she’s only an alt this year, but so is Erin McLeod, so I assume that still counts, since she’s in Japan?

    • Sophie Schmidt could be bi or pan, but she’s definitely married to a man and has never come out as queer as far I know.

      • I just looked this up and I am SHOCKED to my very core. How can someone with that hair not be some kind of queer!?!? I’m both disappointed, and disappointed in myself for not knowing this.

  8. So many queer athletes! I love the photos – excellent representation of weddings, dogs and gorgeous scenery.

    • Don’t be calling down their intense fans on Autostraddle to curse Heather for “outing” them lol.

    • Come on. “OUT” means openly gay. Mewis is married to a man and Press and Heath are more a couple in the hearts and minds of uswnt fans than anything. I mean maybe yes, maybe no, but def not “out”.

      • Kristie Mewis is not married to a man. She is too busy making out with Sam Kerr.

        And you have to really good “friends” to take them to the ESPN body shoot so they see you naked. Yeah, just lesbihonest here. Press and Heath.

  10. I would say safe to include are Mackenzie Arnold (Australia), who has been dating NWSL player Carson Pickett for a few years and Kristie Mewis (USA) who dated Rachel Daly and is now having a very public Instagram flirtation with Sam Kerr (look at the comments).

    • Jessica, my group chat would like to extend an invite – you can dm me at connellheady on twitter or instagram if you are interested!

    • I don’t think Lucy Bronze and Keira Walsh of Team GB are hiding anything — very obvious from their social media that they share a dog and live together (especially after last year) and go on holidays with fellow gays Jordan Nobbs and Leah Williamson.

      Leah’s top 3 on my big ass football crushes. I don’t think she’s hiding anything anymore either. If anything she’s louder than anyone else on team GB (except Rachel Daly, who’s got fuckboi status to live up to).

      Speaking of Daly, you forgot her ex Kirstie Mewis!!

  13. If Sweden is going to destroy the USWNT at least one of their scorers is gay. That haircut is a Rapinoe/Wambach level ALH.

    • I had the same thought while watching! Sweden finally has enough queer haircuts of their own to beat us at our own game.

  14. You missed Paola Egonu (Italy) volleyball player. She will also bring the Italian flag at the Olympics as national representative. it’s really a big deal because Italy is generally perceived as racist and homophobic.

    • I’m Italian and unfortunately the public reaction to her carrying the flag confirmed precisely how homophobic and racist Italy is

  16. just in time for my sports gay summer!*

    *a summer in which i, queer, play absolutely no sports but admire the athletes, gay, who do

  17. Loud, proud, and excited to tell you about it:
    Rapinoe, Franch, Davidson

    I’m not hiding it, but you’ll have to ask me:
    O’Hara, K.Mewis

    We film interviews in different rooms of the same apartment, but travel halfway across the world to play for the same team:
    Press, Heath

    You can probably figure it out if you follow my social media:
    Campbell, Macario

    Not enough evidence to determine:
    Naeher, Sonnett

    US Olympic roster breakdown

    • do we have any actual reason to think Naeher is fam, or is it just that her teammates call her “Uncle” like some kind of Shane McCutcheon?

      • I think it’s partly that and partly that many people assume gay until proven straight when it comes to women’s soccer players. I don’t know if either of those players are straight but I don’t know if they’re NOT straight either. Everyone else not listed above has or at some point had a boyfriend/husband (but could still be bi or pan) (I forgot Lavelle though, IDK about her either). S. Mewis, Morgan, Lloyd, Short, Dahlkemper, Ertz, Dunn are married to men; Horan, Sauerbrunn have boyfriends/male partners.

    • Seen pictures of Sonnett and her girlfriend. They are subtle until Sonnett got drunk at the 2019 World Cup, and made out with her lol!

  20. You missed Daniela Zamora, she is “married” (we only have civil unions in Chile) to a woman.

  25. I don’t know exactly where in the rainbow spectrum K.Mewis falls, but she’s not straight, as pointed by others here, she dated Rachel Daly (and there are still some posts on Kristie’s IG).

  26. Does anyone know if Erleen Ann Ando (Weighlifting) is queer? She gives me huge lesbian vibes

  30. Also missed Australians – Caitlin Foord, Alana Kennedy, Ellie Carpenter, and Mackenzie Arnold.

    USA – Catarina Macario, Christen Press, Tobin Heath, and Jane Campbell.

    England – Leah Williamson, Caroline Weir, and Lucy Bronze, and I believe Ellie Roebuck.

    • Oh nooooooooo, not Ellie, I was waiting until I got younger so I could marry her, or Mary Fowler. Am only 73 now! Coz every year now my age goes down, lol :) :) :). Seriously though, good luck to you Ellie, you are together with some of your Matilda teammates, absolutely amazing players. I enjoy watching you much more so than the men’s game. Very little ego involved and when a goal is scored, you all celebrate together, because you recognize that its been a team effort. You have all brought me much joy for the game, which was lost for many years. Thank you Ellie, thank you Matildas!

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