Daria Kasatkina web ST

Picture Credit: Twitter

World number 12 Daria Kasatkina has come out of the closet as a lesbian as means of criticism towards her country's stance towards homosexuality in a video published on Monday. The 25-year-old came forward after Russian authorities proposed a new law that is set to ban information on all non-traditional sexual relationships in the public sphere.

This law also comes after Russia banned homosexual discussion and "promotion of non-traditional sexual relations" to minors and has restricted LGBT+ advocacy or protest in public since 2013.

"There are many subjects that are even more important than it that are banned, so it's no surprise," Daria Kasatkina told Vitya Kravchenko in an interview on her YouTube channel. "Living in the closet as they say is pointless. Until you choose to come out. Of course, it's up to you how to do it and how much to tell. Living in peace with yourself is the only thing that matters," she added.

"Living in peace with yourself is the only thing that matters, f*** everyone else," she added. "I believe it is important that influential people from sports, or any other sphere really speak about it. It is important for young people who have a hard time with society and need support."

"My respect. I was happy for her, but also other people, especially girls needed to know that," Kasatkina said. “It is important for young people who have a hard time with society and need support. I believe it's important that influential people from sports and any other sphere speak about it. It really helps," she added.

Soon after the interview, Daria Kasatkina posted a picture on Instagram with Olympic silver medalist the Russian-Estonian figure skater Natalia Zabiiako with a heart emoji. Kasatkina shared another picture with Zabiiako which was captioned "my cutie pie" in a Twitter post. 

Like Daria Kasatkina, Jack Daniels, a British footballer also came out as gay and became the first active professional player to come out publicly as a homosexual since 1990. The 17-year-old opened up about his sexuality after he scored more than 30 goals and made his professional debut in the Championship.