The significance of that role isn’t lost on Deville, as her push for authentic LGBTQ representation and visibility within WWE remains a goal seven years after her first appearance on WWE programming. I think it would come down to just more TV time for the women across the board. Let us be part of the production itself. You want to push the women’s division because it’s just gonna help your base, it’s gonna make you different from other companies out there because you want to be the change. And I believe AEW can be the change if they put the focus on the women just a little bit more. Give us the TV time, treat us like equals with the men. That’s all we ever want. So that’s what I hope to see, to see the change so we don’t have to have this conversation in a year or so. Women’s wrestling is something that’s always going to be evolving. Scandanavia burst out as an intriguing region for pro wrestling in 2021, but Jessica Love is a testament to that community’s vibrance long before American audiences caught on. The trans wrestler has been active for 13 years in Fight Club Finland Wrestling, regularly flirting with the company’s Finnish Heavyweight championship picture. In 2021, she challenged for the GLAM! title. I have no doubt that new names like Gozzie, Micha, Kamile Hansen and Spice Speigal will be on this list in the future. Those awaiting their return from injury like Reiza Clarke and Sophie King will surely leave their marks as well.

Now, decades later, the defiant spirits embodying that openness and desire for visibility among wrestling’s lesbian community refuse to keep their identities in the shadows. People like Ashley Vox and Rebel Kinney wear their identities openly in the ring without apology. Charlie Morgan’s promo in which she came out publicly in the ring at a Pro Wrestling EVE event is forever immortalized for its raw reality and ability to usher new LGBTQ fans into a welcoming wrestling space. Most people didn’t know Nyla Rose before she signed with All Elite Wrestling. She’d worked with promotions like Covey Pro, Warriors of Wrestling, and Sendai Girls, but she didn’t really have any national exposure in the US. That changed all at once with AEW signing and her debut at Double Or Nothing, where she faced Kylie Rae, Britt Baker, and Awesome Kong in a Fatal Fourway. As a member of the AEW roster, Nyla is the first transgender wrestler to sign with a major promotion, and this fall she’ll presumably be the first trans wrestler to appear regularly on TV. It’s really cool. Like I said, I just want to be, if anything, kind of just that buffer between them and the world. I’ll do it first and kind of take on whatever heat is to come.It's been five days, and the Internet (ourselves very much included) can't get over Hannah Ferguson's LOVE Advent video.

As a Mexican American kid growing up in Los Angeles, Jake Atlas was raised on lucha libre. He’s recounted in interviews that when he came out to his family as a teenager it didn’t go well. Nevertheless, Jake knew who he was, and he also knew he wanted to be a pro wrestler. In time his family came to accept and support him, and his dream of pro wrestling has also come true. He came out publicly after winning the 2017 Southern California Rookie of the Year Award, and he’s been on an upswing ever since.The reigning New York Championship Wrestling Women’s champion continued brought her whip and whit to the New York wrestling scene in 2021. With her 2+ year reign as champion ongoing, Gonzalez also appeared for Immortal Championship Wrestling and used her place in pro wrestling to advocate for trans voices. In Chicago and beyond, Kota Holliday and her Next Level Soldiers crew kept pushing to new levels in 2021. Holliday and tag partner Jax Johnson riled crowds in Berwyn Championship Wrestling, Great Lakes Wrestling and Hybrid Championship Wrestling. But Holliday also has a rivalry with Mateo Valentine in Proving Grounds Chicago in dire need of a one-on-one clash.

The country has made great strides with increasing awareness on the subject of homosexuality and transgender issues through PSAs and through advocacy groups educating the public. The movement by the LGBTQ community was centered on the desire not to be shunned for their differences but to be accepted as part of the fabric of society. And in all that, you can still enjoy some spectacular and acrobatic moves that do justice to the skills and agility of the IFW girls! Description: IN THIS GROUP WOMEN TALK AND SHARE THEIR OWN WOMEN ON WOMEN WRESTLING STORY'S AND WHAT THEY WEAR WHILE THEY WRESTLE OTHER WOMEN EROTICLY And the movement will surely welcome names we have yet to learn, those whose dreams of stepping between the ropes are just starting to form, thanks to the continued momentum and growing volume of queer voices in pro wrestling around the globe.I originally intended to watch The Lion King but someone swapped the tape out for Royal Rumble 2000,” Kinney revealed on the Outsports podcast LGBT In The Ring. “Instead of watching the story of Simba, I watched Taz beat up Kurt Angle.” She suspects it was her brother that caused this bit of serendipity, but Kinney was hooked regardless. It felt like nearly every day brought new additions to the family, more events celebrating LGBTQ identities and sections of the LGBTQ community raising their voices to speak directly to the faces of pro wrestling power structures. Whether she’s stepping into the ring to dish out punishment or using her power as a well-suited official to do the same, Sonya Deville’s presence within WWE speaks to more than your average pro wrestling fan. Deville is a history maker, becoming the first out lesbian competitor in WWE history and one of the most forward-facing figures for the LGBTQ community to millions of WWE fans. The former half of The Prime Time Players is the first wrestler in the WWE to come out as gay while being an active wrestler, when he first announced that he was gay to TMZ.