Setting a Goal with Angela Hucles Mangano
With this summer’s Olympics Tokyo Games 2020, and the recent win for the U.S. in the Women’s soccer tournament, we got to talk with former two-time Olympic gold medalist, Angela Hucles Mangano, all about soccer, the Olympics, and her LGBTQ+ identity.
2008 Olympics Beijing Olympics (Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)
Soccer and I think sports, in general, have given me a good foundation of confidence, self-awareness, and other important skills which have allowed me to use my voice and be an example for others that have needed to see themselves in someone else before being able to step into their own power and feel more confident. I think that’s just another great example of how sports can help so many people.
I actually feel like sports has been the environment where I’ve felt the safest, could be myself, and not think as much about labels and ways to identify differently from others. Especially being a part of a team, it's given me the opportunity to work together with people who may have different backgrounds and experiences as me, but trying to achieve a common goal. I realize that’s not everyone’s experience. Sports definitely has this power and ability to create awareness when it comes to discrimination in different forms, and I think in my experience also a chance to have conversations with people that may have been more difficult to replicate in other environments.
My time with the national team allowed me a safe and comfortable environment to understand more about myself and grow individually. Having other “out” teammates definitely helped as well in not feeling isolated or alone as a member of the LGBTQ+ community.
Along with her impressive soccer career, Hucles also uses her titles and positions off the field to influence and empower her community.
It’s important when you have unique platforms to raise awareness for important issues, create more visibility and hopefully influence change for the better. I think personally I lead best by example and in daily actions, but also to realize it’s not necessarily just making a big decision that can be influential, but also the small daily consistent actions driven by the larger goal you’re working towards.
With the Tokyo Olympic Games occurring, Hucles shares her words of wisdom for Olympians and those in the LGBTQ+ community.
It would be the same advice I’d give to any Olympian really, which is to be free and true to yourself and your performances within your respective sports and events will benefit from it.
We are intricate and diverse human beings, and I don’t think any one person on this planet can say they are only one thing or hold one identity. It’s taken me a little bit of time to see the strengths and beauty in being able to hold multiple identities especially when many of those groups are still being discriminated against. I would say to focus on the beauty of who you are in all of your uniqueness because it’s truly a special thing.
The Olympics typically have this way of bringing us as a world together and feeling connected in ways that just don’t seem to be replicated anywhere else. I think I always feel this way during these Games and hold on to that incredible aspect of them.
Thank you again to Angela Hucles Mangano for donating her time to Rainbow Labs!
Interviewed & edited by Halli Rae Gigante