(CNN) -- Selected for dominating “the world's game, on the world's stage, under attack by a world leader," U.S. soccer star and social activist Megan Rapinoe is Sports Illustrated's Sportsperson of the Year.
The magazine says Rapinoe, who is a lesbian, is just the fourth woman in the award’s 66-year history to win the honor unaccompanied.
SI calls that “a remarkable athletic achievement and a reflection of entrenched gender biases."
Rapinoe, 34, led her teammates to sue the U.S. Soccer Federation for equal pay and to declare in advance that they wouldn't visit the White House when they won the World Cup in July.
"While we do not get to choose what we see or what happens around us, and sometimes to us and others, we do get to choose how we bear witness to it," Rapinoe captioned an Instagram post of the magazine cover.