Olympic champion Ellia Green finds liberation in transition

By DENNIS PASSA
AP Sports Writer

BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — One of the stars of Australia’s gold medal-winning women’s rugby sevens team at the 2016 Olympics has transitioned to male. Olympic champion Ellia Green realized as a young child that a person’s identity and a gender assigned at birth can be very different things. Green tells The Associated Press that transitioning since retiring from professional rugby has been the best decision of his life. Realizing that sharing that experience could be lifesaving for others is what compelled Green to go public in a video to be shown at an international summit aimed at ending transphobia and homophobia in sport. The summit is being hosted in Ottawa as part of the Bingham Cup rugby tournament.