While Rapinoe has been out since 2012, it took some time for Bird to publicly open up about her sexuality. In 2017, she officially came out as gay in an interview with ESPNW. "I'm gay. Megan's my girlfriend. . . . These aren't secrets to people who know me. . . . I don't feel like I've not lived my life. I think people have this assumption that if you're not talking about it, you must be hiding it, like it's this secret. That was never the case for me," she explained (via Bleacher Report).
Bird continued to address critics who questioned why she made the decision to make the announcement later in life, saying, "Even though I understand there are people who think I should have done it sooner, it wasn't right for me at the time. I have to be true to that. It's my journey."
