Australian rugby player Ellia Green has come out as a trans man, the first Olympian to do so. The 2016 gold medalist and his wife also have an infant daughter, whom he credits as an inspiration for being open about himself.
Green represented Australia in women’s rugby sevens and won a gold medal at the Rio Olympics and a silver medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. He is now retired and lives in Sydney with his wife Vanessa Turnbull-Roberts, a First Nations rights advocate, and their child. On Tuesday he gave an opening address at the Bingham Cup’s international summit on ending transphobia and homophobia in sports, and came out publicly as trans for the first time.
“I promised myself that when my rugby career ended, I would continue to live the rest of my life in the identity and the body that I that I know I am meant to be in,” he said. “Being open about my gender identity is a really difficult thing to do these days. All you have to do is turn on the TV, look on social media platforms, and you can see the amount of bullying, harm, and discrimination that goes on about gender identities. It’s extremely harmful, so for someone to be open and honest about their identity to the public eye is absolutely daunting.”
He says his child helped him face up to the task. On Instagram, he shared, “One of the main reasons why I have decided to be open about myself is because of my beautiful baby. I don’t want her to ever grow up thinking that I was ashamed of myself or ashamed of being her dad in the public eye. I will tell her the story of it all and how much strength her Mummy and herself gave me to live and to love.”
In his speech and a media statement (PDF), he also spoke of the decisions by sports organizations, including World Rugby and FINA, to ban trans women and girls from participating in sport, noting, “Imagine not being able to do what you love because of how you identify. Banning transgender people from sport, I think, is disgraceful, and I think it’s hurtful. I think that the alarmingly high rates of suicide and the mental health challenges which trans and gender diverse youth experience will get even worse.”
At the same time, he said, “To those listening or to those who might have a story even the slightest bit similar to mine I would just love to tell you that it does get better…. People are always going to have something to say whether that be positive or negative, and I’ve learned that in 10 years of being a professional rugby player. So why not just live the rest of your life exactly as you want to be, because life is just too short to live it as something else.”
Watch Green’s full five-minute speech below: