Kate & Helen Richardson-Walsh

Hockey legends, Kate Richardson-Walsh OBE and Helen Richardson-Walsh MBE, became the first same-sex married couple to win an Olympic gold medal when Team GB won at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

With almost 700 international caps between them, Helen and Kate have years of experience under their belts on the hockey field and have been pioneers of LGBTQ+ rights in sport.

Since retiring, Kate and Helen have taken up various roles with sports clubs and believe that sport has become more open and tolerant, but there is still a lot of work to do, especially around trans rights.

In recent years, various sporting institutions have responded to the participation of transgender women by adding eligibility requirements to women’s sports at various levels.

Supporters of such regulation say it is necessary to ensure fairness and safety, but critics say the policies are discriminatory against transgender and intersex women.

Asked about how sports can address the issues surrounding trans athletes, Kate believes the surrounding conversation must come from a place of kindness and inclusivity.

Helen and Kate believe it is important to have important and honest conversations in order to change the culture in an institution, club or sport. They think that it isn’t up to individuals to lead the change, but the collective, and for people to call out negative behaviours.

After retiring, Helen and Kate faced a different challenge when they decided to have a child. Pfeiffer was born in December 2019, three months before the UK was placed into a nationwide lockdown due to the first Covid outbreak.They have both had to deal with the challenges of being same-sex parents and coping with difficulties in raising a newborn, but they have used the skills they learned in sports to help them.