Ashlyn Harris, Ali Krieger Call for Support of Transgender Athletes at GLAAD Awards

United States women's national team stars Ashlyn Harris and Ali Krieger voiced their support for transgender athletes at the GLAAD Awards. 

While presenting an award at the virtual ceremony Thursday, Krieger and Harris used the platform to call for transgender athletes to be accepted as "part of the team" in all sports. 

The calls for equality and acceptance by Harris and Krieger come amid recent efforts across the United States to restrict or ban trans athletes from competing in sports. 

Per Dan Avery of NBC News, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves signed the "Mississippi Fairness Act" into law last month that prohibits transgender athletes from participating in school sports in accordance with the gender with which they identify. 

The law also requires all schools in the state to designate sports teams by sex assigned at birth.

Per John Hanna of the Associated Press, Kansas lawmakers are on the verge of passing a bill that would ban transgender student-athletes from competing in girls' or women's sports. 

Hanna noted that Idaho, Arkansas and Tennessee are other states that have signed similar bills into law in the past year. 

“We shouldn’t discriminate against kids and ban them from playing because they’re transgender," Harris said at the GLAAD Awards. 

Harris and Krieger married in 2019. Both play for the Orlando Pride in the NWSL and won FIFA Women's World Cup titles with the USWNT in 2015 and 2019.