This panel will be moderated by Steve Buckley, Senior Writer for The Athletic. Panelists include Author, Activist and Coach, Joanna Lohman; Amy Whelan, Senior Staff Attorney at NCLR; and Angela Hucles Mangano, Founding Member of Angel City FC. Join us for a conversation about LGBTQ people and sports from the perspectives of athletes, coaches, advocates and fans.

Check out Joanna Lohman’s new book, Raising Tomorrow’s Champions, an extraordinary parenting and life lessons book as told through the eyes of the greatest women’s soccer players of all-time, including Mia Hamm, Carli Lloyd, Alex Morgan, Abby Wambach, Crystal Dunn and more than 100 others.

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About the Moderator

Steve Buckley | Senior Writer for The Athletic

Steve Buckley is a columnist and feature writer for The Athletic. He was a columnist with the Boston Herald for 24 years, and earlier in his career he was hired by the late Frank Deford as a columnist for The National Sports Daily. 

Buckley came out as gay in 2011 with a front-page column in the Boston Herald. Since then, he has become a spokesman, panelist and speaker for sports-themed gay events throughout the country. His last book, “Wicked Good Year,” (HarperCollins, 2009), tells the back stories of the Red Sox, Patriots and Celtics all vying for championships between October 2007 and June 2008. He has covered every major Boston sporting event over the past 30 years, including the Patriots’ six Super Bowl championships, the Red Sox’ four World Series championship victories, the Celtics’ run to the NBA championship in the spring of 2008 and the Bruins’ 2011 Stanley Cup title.

A native of Cambridge, Mass., Buckley is a 1978 graduate of the University of Massachusetts.

About the Panelists

Joanna Lohman | Athlete, Coach, Activist

Joanna has been rocking stages and fields all over the globe for more than two decades. She is a former professional soccer player and member of the United States Women’s National Team. During her 16-year professional career, she has built a platform for social impact and became the first player in Washington Spirit history to have her jersey retired. She is the author of the newly released, Raising Tomorrow’s Champions, an extraordinary parenting and life lessons book as told through the eyes of the greatest women’s soccer players of all-time. She is also a professional speaker, human rights activist and a Sport Diplomat traveling the world running programs in less developed nations. She strives to live an unabashedly authentic life based around deep-rooted acceptance and helps others discover a comfort in their own skin.

Amy Whelan, Esq. | Senior Staff Attorney at NCLR

Amy Whelan has been a Senior Staff Attorney at the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) since 2011 and works on NCLR’s full range of litigation, policy, and public education work. Amy litigates complex civil cases around the country regarding marriage equality, employment discrimination, Title IX, family law, access to healthcare, prisoners’ civil rights, the First Amendment, and other constitutional matters. Amy represented the mother of a transgender teenager who was subjected to severe discrimination during an inpatient stay, resulting in a landmark opinion holding that discrimination based on a person’s transgender identity is sex discrimination under the Affordable Care Act. 

Amy also represents Adree Edmo, a transgender woman housed in the Idaho Department of Corrections who was denied gender affirming surgery despite her desperate need for that care. NCLR, along with co-counsel, obtained an order finding that the denial of care violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and requiring prison officials to provide the surgery. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision, which the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review. In July 2020, Ms. Edmo became the second person in the country to receive court-ordered surgery in prison. Amy also represents Mary Walsh and Bev Nance in their litigation against a senior living facility that denied them housing because they are a same-sex couple.

Amy received her Bachelor’s Degree from Princeton University and her Juris Doctorate from Northeastern University School of Law.

Angela Hucles Mangano | Founding Member of Angel City FC

A speaker, sports leadership expert and soccer analyst, Angela Hucles is a two-time Olympic Gold Medalist for US Soccer, two-time World Cup Bronze Medalist, former professional soccer player and the US Soccer Foundation’s 2009 Humanitarian of the Year. Her passion is in helping others achieve their goals and dreams and has over 35 years experience in the sports industry.  Angela has become a regular speaker on topics of leadership and the power of sport and its impact on personal growth and development. Angela is a Past President of the Women’s Sports Foundation, founded by Billie Jean King, and is a soccer analyst for FOX, ESPN, and NBC during the Women’s World Cups, Olympic games, and ACC / SEC women’s and men’s college soccer.  She is a founding owner of the latest NWSL women’s professional soccer team, Angel City FC, in Los Angeles and has a real estate business with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties.