French Olympic kayaker Sandra Forgues has come out as transgender, Outsports reports. Forgues won a gold medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics in the canoe team event, as well as a bronze medal at the Barcelona Olympics in the same event.
After struggling with her gender identity for years, the 48-year-old says she finally made the decision to come out 18 months ago.
“I live a dream,” Forgues told L’Equipe. “Until then, I had a really successful social, family and professional life. I was engaged in a billion things. But my intimate life was in a prison. I always thought it would be one or the other.”
While Forgues is one of only a few Olympic athletes to publicly come out as transgender, several openly trans athletes, including New Zealander Laurel Hubbard and Australian Hannah Mouncey, are already eyeing positions at the 2020 Olympics in events including volleyball, handball and weightlifting.
“I am not simply trying to continue a career I started four years ago,” Mouncey previously said of her campaign for equality in sports.
“It will always be about representing my country as best I can, but now it’s also about representing the transgender community and providing the impetus for true equality within a society that often wants us to be ignored.”
