Green detailed his transition experience to the IGR Bingham Cup Summit in Canada. Source: IGR Bingham Cup.
The gold medallist and former rugby union player has become the first Olympian to come out as a trans man saying that he’s in a much better place now.
In a video released on August 16 for the IGR Bingham Cup Summit, Green detailed his disappointment over the decision throughout the sporting world to prohibit trans women from competing professionally.
“Banning transgender people from sport, I think is disgraceful and I think its hurtful.”
He then went on to explain his transition story in which he described struggling with mental health towards the end of his Women’s Rugby 7s career.
“Pretty much my rugby career ended, and I had been in and out of mental health facilities for serious issues. My depression hit a new level of sadness,” he told AP.
The 2016 Rio Olympics Gold Medalist said he was extremely depressed and stayed within a dark room at home after not making the national Rugby 7s squad but noted the only thing that was keeping him going was his upcoming surgery.
“The one thing that did keep me positive is that I had already planned my surgery and treatment towards my transition. It was something I was counting down the days with my partner.”
He detailed to AP that he knew as a child that he didn’t feel right identifying as a female.
“As a kid I remember I thought I was a boy in public, I had a short (haircut) and whenever we met new people, they thought I was a boy. I always used to wear my brother’s clothes, played with tools, and ran around with no shirt on. Until I grew breasts, and I thought ‘oh no’.”
“My mom would dress me in girlie outfits . . . I always wanted to make her happy, so if she wanted me to wear a dress, I wore a dress.”
Green was adopted at age three by Yolanta and Evan Green who took him back to Australia, with his mum- Yolanta- being the one to encourage him into sports.
Although he is in a much better place in life and is also undertaking a university degree in cyber security, Green says that he hopes sharing his story will help people to be more understanding towards the trans community.
“I just wish that people would maybe realise that it is really, really stressful, and hard when people ask you so many questions instead of being like ‘hey that’s great, I respect that’,” he said.
“It does get better”
“People will always have something to say whether positive or negative.
“Why not live the rest of your life as exactly as you want to be.”
