Janelly Farías Rodríguez (born 12 February 1990) is a former professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who last played as

centre-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

for

Liga MX Femenil Liga MX Femenil, also known as Liga BBVA MX Femenil for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league and the highest level of women's football in Mexico. Supervised by the Mexican Football Federation, Federación Mexicana d ...

club Juárez. She participated in Exatlón Estados Unidos season 1 and was a commentator/analyst for the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup for Telemundo. She uses her platform to promote inclusivity and advocate for LGBT+ persons. Born in the United States, she represented

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

at international level.

Club career

After publicly coming out as lesbian while playing college soccer, the rejection she suffered from her family originally led her to quit football. After a few years, however, during which her family gradually reconnected with her and in which she was inspired by the

2015 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup was the seventh FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international soccer championship contested by the women's national teams of the member associations of FIFA. The tournament was hosted by Canada for the f ...

, she made the decision to return to the sport. On 28 June 2019, Farías joined

side

CD Guadalajara Club Deportivo Guadalajara S.A de C.V. (;), nicknamed ''"Chivas"'' () and simply known as Guadalajara or internationally as Chivas de Guadalajara, is a Mexican professional Association football, football club based in the Guadalajara metropolit ...

International career

Farías represented Mexico at the

2006 FIFA U-20 Women's World Championship The 2006 FIFA U-20 Women's World Championship was held in Russia from 17 August to 3 September 2006. It was the officially recognized world championship for women's under-20 national association football teams. Matches were held in four Moscow st ...

. She made her senior debut on 1 April 2007. She is currently on the full women’s Mexico national team and looking to participate in the 2020 Olympic qualifying CONCACAF TOURNAMENT.

Personal life

Farias is openly

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

. She actively advocates for equality and uses her platform to promote visibility and empowerment for the LGBT+ community. In October 2020, she led a talk for

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

titled "Navigating the Borders of Gender, Culture, Language, and Sexuality in Sports and Beyond."

References

External links

* * * 1990 births Living people Mexican women's footballers Women's association football central defenders Women's association football midfielders Mexico women's international footballers Apollon Ladies F.C. players Liga MX Femenil players C.D. Guadalajara (women) footballers Mexican expatriate women's footballers Mexican expatriate sportspeople in Cyprus Expatriate women's footballers in Cyprus Mexican lesbian sportswomen American women's soccer players Soccer players from Santa Ana, California American sportspeople of Mexican descent New Mexico Lobos women's soccer players UC Irvine Anteaters women's soccer players American lesbian sportswomen American LGBTQ soccer players LGBTQ people from California American expatriate women's soccer players American expatriate sportspeople in Cyprus Club América (women) footballers 21st-century American sportswomen 21st-century Mexican sportswomen {{Mexico-footy-midfielder-1990s-stub