From Soccer to Activism: Rainbow Warrior Joanna Lohman

In Resiterhood, the debut film by Cheryl Jacob “CJ” Crim, the voices of the oppressed are no longer silent.

Examining the ongoing reverberations of the 2016 U.S. presidential election from a women’s perspective, Resisterhood is a compelling and impactful documentary urging us all to use our voice and vote to shape the future of our country. It showcases the inspiring stories of six incredibly diverse activists as they work tirelessly to enact change to protect civil rights, and they hope to motivate others to do the same.

Representing the LGBTQ community is former soccer player and self-proclaimed “Rainbow Warrior” Joanna Lohman. Following a season-ending injury, Lohman used this setback as an opportunity to transform herself into a role model, activist, and motivational speaker. Utilizing her platform to impact people around the world, she promotes and stands up for gender equality and LGBTQ rights.

She also serves as a Sports Diplomat where she travels the world and runs programs in less developed nations that promote gender equality, conflict resolution, cultural understanding, and economic development.

OUT FRONT had the opportunity to chat more with Lohman about the film, how she got involved, and what she hopes to accomplish with her activism.Hi, Joanna! Thank you for taking some time to chat with me. How have you been doing during these unprecedented times?
I think I have been doing as well as anyone could expect. I am very privileged in the sense that I do not have to work on the front line. I have not lost a job so to speak, and my family and I have been healthy. So, I am truly grateful for things because a lot of people don’t even have that. Even being cooped up and not being able to travel as much as I would like, I feel very lucky to be in the position that I am in.

You are a retired, professional soccer player who is now an activist and motivational speaker for the LGBTQ community. You are also one of the main subjects in the documentary Resisterhood. Can you tell us more about the film and how you got involved?
Yes, I would love to tell you about the film. The film follows six main characters in their individual advocacy activism missions, and I am the focus for LGBTQ. It really is an amazing story as to how I got involved in this documentary. You won’t even believe this, but I was doing a ropes course with zip lines in Maryland when all my nieces and nephews were in town for a holiday, and at that point, their ages ranged from 5 to 9. This was a couple years ago.

So, and this happens a lot, the kids got tired, and I wanted to continue the ropes course. I was up high in the sky and about to go down a zip line, and there was a woman in front of me. It is only one-by-one on the zip line, so you have to wait for the person in front of you before you can go. She was on her cell phone, and this is, like, 50 feet up in the air. I just kind of gave her a funny look of like; maybe this isn’t the appropriate time to take a phone call. She looked back and apologized to me and said, ‘I’m so sorry, I just found out one of my good friends has breast cancer.’

Of course, I changed my tune. I was like, ‘I’m so sorry,’ and we got to talking. She was there with her son; they do the course quite often, and we were just getting to know each other, and I got into the fact that I was a professional soccer player. She was a huge soccer fan, and at that point, she was working for the Discovery Channel and had done a lot of work in television.

We exchanged Facebook, and about a month later, the Women’s March was coming up. She asked if I was marching, and I invited her to march with me. She said, ‘Actually, we are working on a documentary, and I was wondering if you wanted to be a part of it.’ So, that was the cool part. I met her up on a zip line, then this documentary happened which started with me at the Women’s March marching with a group of LGBTQ athletes and allies, then it developed into a two-to-three-year project that I very much fell in love with.

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That is amazing! Besides being followed for documentary purposes, what was your experience at the 2017 Women’s March like?
It was very powerful. I am sure you know that it was incredibly crowded, so the march pretty much turned into just a standing fest, but at the same time, it was great to see that many people in support of equity and equality for women. It was a powerful moment in my life, and then having the documentary crew following me adds a little bit of legitimacy to your mission.

It gives you a little more responsibility to be an activist, and I think that was a really great way to kick off the start of the documentary. It launched me into a whole different stratosphere of activism.

What do you hope audiences take away from Resisterhood?
I want the audience to be inspired. I want them to be inspired regardless of what platform they have. Big, small, in-between—we can make a huge difference. Also, that voting come November is essential. We all have to have a voice, and we all have to speak up to vote this current administration out.

This is for all future freedoms. For all marginalized groups in our society. Whether you are Black, brown, Latinx, LGBTQ, this is a moment in history where we really have to have our voices heard, and I hope audience members take away motivation and inspiration to really be a part of this current change.You are a self-proclaimed “Rainbow Warrior.” Why is activism so important to you?
It is important to me because I have lived a lot of my life as an LGBTQ community member. While I felt safe, I would say most of the time because I am a female athlete, female athletics and LGBTQ issues can come hand-in-hand.

As a world traveler, I have been to 45 different countries. I have been to Africa four years in a row. I was in Nigeria last November, so I know from a firsthand perspective how many women and LGBTQ women are silenced. And not just women, but all genders are silenced throughout the world, and it is not safe to be a LGBTQ community member in many different countries.

So, I want to be an advocate because I think I am privileged to be able to live my life openly and honestly, and I want to use my platform to show the world that being different is not dangerous. How I look with my mohawk, my sexual orientation, how I live my life—I am not a dangerous human being. I still share a lot in common with everyone that I meet on my travels. I really want to normalize the concept of LGBTQ globally and help individuals who do not feel safe to have a voice. I hope these people will one day be able to come out and live their authentic truth.

If Trump’s presidency has taught us anything, it is that we need to stay involved, be active, and have a voice. We had a record-breaking amount of women and people of diverse backgrounds elected to office in 2018. Do you think we can do that again in November?
I do. I don’t want to get my hopes up because I think everybody’s hopes were up when it was the last election, and I think that was huge reality check and a punch in the stomach to see Trump win that election. So, I think we are all cautiously hopeful, and I think that this election will be different just because of what we have seen happen that CJ really documented well throughout the past four years.

You really forget how much trauma we have all been through in this administration. It’s one thing after another, so I am hoping that for each individual in this country, one thing affected them personally or they felt truly discriminated against or violated by something Trump has done in his four years as our president. I hope they are going to want to stand up and have someone else as our president.

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What was going through your mind when it was announced that Trump won the presidency?
It was interesting because I was in Botswana, Africa. I had gone to bed before the election was over because we were, I think six hours ahead. So, I woke up to the news, and I felt like I was punched in the stomach. Like, I had no words for it, and the ironic thing was that I was leading this sports diplomacy program called Girl Power. It almost felt hypocritical that an American woman is leading this charge for girl power, and we just elected Trump as our next president.

I got to the field to lead this program, and I really felt discouraged, but once I saw the girls walk out to the field, I looked into their eyes and realized I had to step up. That was a reckoning for me, personally. Regardless of who was the leader of our country, I had to use my platform even more now. I had to show the world that Trump is not a representation of every individual in the United States of America.

Many people do not vote because they think their vote does not matter, and it was mind-blowing to learn that over 100 million people did not vote in the 2016 election. What more do we need to do to change this perception?
That is a really great question. I think I saw recently that one out of five people in America are not registered to vote. There is still a huge gap in terms of representation, and I just really want to encourage people that this is what democracy looks like. Expressing your vote. It is the only way to really have a true democracy. So, if we are not exercising our right to vote, then we are jeopardizing our ability to create change and have an administration and leadership that is representative of the people.

I hope everyone will see these past four years as a threat of what could happen again if we do not stand up and get to the polls and put in those votes. They matter. Every single vote matters. Whether you are in a red, blue, or swing state. It matters that we are heard, and strength comes in numbers. I want to encourage everyone to use their own power and exercise that power for the greater good.Do you think the pasting of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the rushed nomination of Amy Coney Barrett will make a significant impact on the election?
You know, it is hard to say. It will be interesting to see what happens. I hope that the passing of RBG had lit a fire underneath a lot of us because our rights on in jeopardy. Our rights are being threatened by the current administration, and we lost a voice who was so powerful in the equity and equality movement. I hope that people will use RBG’s passing as an inspiration and motivation to vote.

I dread to even ask this, but what do you think will happen to this country if we by chance get four more years of him?
I think you will see a lot of people move to Canada [laughs]. Honestly, I think some people will actually consider leaving the country. Anyone who maybe has a dual citizenship, and I don’t say that as a joke. I have heard a lot of people say that to me personally.

Climate change is going to get worse; the Black Lives Matter movement is going to get louder, as it should, and we are going to be a much more polarized country. It is going to be two sides divided, and it is going to be sad. I hope that doesn’t happen, but it is going to be another two to four years that we are going to have to dig for hope and really encourage one another to resist against this administration.

I think we will lead ourselves because we won’t have trust in the administration. We won’t have trust in Trump. We will have segmented groups really leading themselves as opposed to the higher powers.

There have been some reports saying that a high percentage of LGBTQ people plan to vote for Trump. What are your thoughts on this?
To be quite honest, to see what he has done against the LGBTQ community, it’s scary, and to know that members of our community would actually vote that man back into the presidency for four more years is terrifying. You wonder what they prioritize in their own lives to really believe that he is the right person for the job.

Sometimes, it’s a selfish outlook. Maybe they feel somewhat safe in their small, individual lives, but as a whole, we are in danger, and I would really like to believe that people would put their personal beliefs behind and stand for what is right for out country and community.

Before we wrap up, are there any upcoming projects you would like to mention or plug?
Currently, I am working on a book. The book will come out next spring, I hope, potentially sometime in March. I have been working on it for the past year, and without divulging too much into it, it will be a book essentially about how to raise badass young women. Given our current circumstances, we need an army of badass women. We already have it, but we need more, and we need to raise our daughters to believe that they can do absolutely anything, and they can kick ass.

Photo courtesy of Joanna Lohman

To stay up-to-date with Lohman, follow her on social media, or visit joannalohman.com. Resisterhood is now available on Amazon Prime Video and Vimeo on Demand.

Photos Courtesy of Joanna Lohman