CSD Awards Gold Medal for Sports Merit to Patricia Campos

Today, the President of the Supreme Council for Sports, Jose Manuel Franco, presented the gold medal to the Association The Royal Sports Merit Medal of Patricia Campos, A former Navy pilot, soccer coach, and women’s rights and gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex activist.

She did this in a work that took place at the headquarters of the organization and was attended by more than a hundred female athletes from the Madrid Center for High Performance, in the context of the Women’s Week implemented by CSD.

Patricia Campos (Onda, 1972), was the first Spanish woman to pilot a jet aircraft during her career in the Navy. After leaving the army in 2013, she began coaching professional soccer in the United States, becoming one of the first women to coach a professional team, the Honolulu Bulls Soccer Club.

In her autobiographical book, Tierra, Mar Yer, she publicly declared herself a lesbian and advocated the rights of women and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) identities.

Through his NGO, Goals for Freedom, he collaborates with the empowerment of girls, boys and women in Uganda to promote change in society through football.

And through Project Supera-t, he promotes events where equality is promoted through sport, the removal of barriers based on gender and sexuality, and the contribution to women’s leadership.

As explained by the Secretary of State for Sports, this is the first ROMD gold medal to be awarded under the Equality in Sport strategy, a group of CSD initiatives and campaigns to promote gender equality, LGTBI diversity and sports for people with disabilities, that has been launched in recent weeks.

“Today, 8M, we are introducing one dedicated to the advancement of women in sport; on June 28, we will do so for those who fight against LGBT discrimination in sport; and on December 3, International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we will do so in accordance with the inclusion criterion through Sports,” Franco offers. Likewise, the Chair of the Commission on Sustainable Development wished that these three annual admissions in favor of equality would exceed his mandate.