Forget Joe D. and Marilyn, Bird & Rapinoe Now Define Power Couples

September 9th, 2022 12:26 PM

Sue Bird, left, and Megan Rapinoe First Megan Rapinoe and Sue Bird mainstreamed the notion of LGBT power couples. Now they’ve refined the meaning of power couples altogether, according to fan-boy Ken Schultz, a writer for the extremely out blog, Outsports. 

Bird’s long WNBA career has come to an end, and according to Schultz, a “lasting part of her legacy will be mainstreaming her relationship with Rapinoe in the public eye.” Rapinoe being one of the most woke and annoying radical leftists in public life. 

Bird owns five Olympic gold medals, four WNBA championships and two NCAA titles from her college days at Connecticut. Schultz says her sports legacy is secure, but beyond those feats, her off-court relationship with soccer star Rapinoe cannot be overlooked. “To say the least, Bird’s reputation on the court as one of basketball’s all-time greats is secure,” Schultz continues. “But even beyond those accomplishments, one very important aspect of her legacy took place off the hardwood.: 

Bird [at left in photo with Rapinoe] and her partner Megan Rapinoe mainstreamed the concept of the gay sports power couple. And in doing so, they redefined the term itself. 

So then, forget all about couples who put the power in power couples. Discount Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe. Tiger Woods and Lindsay Vonn, Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen, too. 

Power couples are typically straight, but “Then Bird and Rapinoe met at the 2016 Summer Olympics and began dating shortly thereafter. Almost from that very moment, the public embraced the two of them unlike any gay or lesbian athlete couple before.” 

That’s certainly defining “the public” with a microscope, because Schultz is conning his readers. A year ago, 50 percent of Americans had never heard of Rapinoe, and only 25 percent of those polled gave her favorable ratings. 

When the match made in alphabet heaven began, it was only a year after the U.S. Supreme Court’s power grab yanked away the right of states to define marriage. That timing is incredibly fitting to Schultz, as the two lesbian legends rose up to become “the sports power couple for the legalized gay marriage generation.”  

Then, in October 2020, Bird and Rapinoe got engaged. They’ve also used their woke LGBT platforms to be as visible (and annoying) as possible. And I mean visible. They appeared naked together in ESPN Magazine’s Body Issue, the first homosexual couple to do so. These sweet kids also co-hosted the 2020 ESPY Awards and did a photo shoot for InStyle magazine. They now own alphabet soup America. 

At a time when Schultz was searching for a glimmer of hope during the dark days of COVID, Rapinoe and Bird hosted weekly raucous Instagram Lives, filling the cyber world with “joy, singing, charity and laughter. It turned out that during these unprecedented times, we needed to see multi-time world champion partners crooning Avril Lavigne to one another way more than we would have ever guessed.” 

(Who's "we?")

All things told, the amazing new power couple helped normalize the concept of two lesbian athletes pouring out their love for each another to the world, Schultz gushes. Each and every one of their appearances was “a victory for the idea that the country was ready to embrace a lesbian celebrity couple from the sports world.” Now that’s defining “country” loosely. 

Schultz believes that the Rapinoe-Bird power couple out-shone golfer Woods and skier Vonn athletically, too. There is actually no end to the accolades he heaps upon his ideal pairing. 

Bird’s basketball career is over, and Rapinoe’s soccer career is also nearing the finish line, but it’s assured that we will continue to hear from them and they will make us (at least Schultz anyway) really proud. 

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?