WNBA Legend Sue Bird Opens Up About Personal 'Struggle' Over Her Sexuality

Sue Bird is seen as one of the nation's most prominent queer athletes, but the WNBA legend said it wasn't always so easy to be open about her sexuality.

Bird and fiancee Megan Rapinoe served as grand marshals of the 2024 Seattle Pride Parade, representing the city where they both found tremendous athletic success. But in an interview with Erin Edwards of the Seattle Times , Bird admitted that when she first entered the league as the first overall pick of the Seattle Storm in 2002, she struggled with being herself.

"I remember my rookie year in Seattle. I knew I was gay," Bird said. "I had girlfriends at that point, but it wasn’t something I talked about publicly [or] expressed publicly. And I remember I was in town for Pride. I snuck up to Capitol Hill just to check it out. I tried to keep a low profile, I bopped around a little bit during the day. When I look back on that and I think of my own evolution, figuring out who we are has been a ton of struggle, but this is the time to really celebrate that struggle, in a sense, through a common ground of understanding."

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Bird said that she started coming out to those around her at age 23 and by the time she was 30, " pretty much everybody in my life knew." The former WNBA star said meeting Rapinoe helped her realize the importance of being open about her sexuality.

"It was actually [crystallized] in meeting Megan and listening to her talk about how important it was to come out because it’s going to help other people come out, it’s going to help other people feel comfortable in their skin and how important that is in terms of being a role model," Bird said. "I never really looked at it that way. That’s why I publicly came out as late as I did."