US women’s national soccer team star Megan Rapinoe defended her decision to kneel during the national anthem in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick, conceding that she was aware the protest would make “people uncomfortable.”

“I think that protest is not comfortable ever,” she told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Tuesday night. “It’s going to force people to look inward and question everything they thought that they knew.”

Rapinoe became the first white female to follow Kaepernick’s lead when she took a knee before a game with the Chicago Red Stars in 2016.

“Being a gay American, I know what it means to look at the flag and not have it protect all of your liberties,” she told American Soccer Now at the time.

Shortly after her show of protest, Rapinoe explained her decision to kneel during the national anthem in an essay for The Players’ Tribune titled “Why I Am Kneeling.”

In 2017, the United States Soccer Federation passed a policy declaring that players must “stand respectfully” during the national anthem before national team games.

When pressed on her decision to stand with her hands at her sides during the Women’s World Cup despite representing the US on the global stage, Rapinoe doubled down, saying that “taking care of others, standing up for yourself and other people if they don’t have the ability to do so, is very uniquely American.”

“I don’t think anybody can deny the horrors of racism and Jim Crow and mass incarceration and what’s happening on the southern border and gay rights and women’s rights.”

Rapinoe drew further controversy when she described the protest as a “good ‘F you’” to the Trump administration.

Although Rapinoe admitted that kneeling has never been easy, she explained the importance of the symbolic gesture.

“It doesn’t feel good really for anyone … but that’s what it takes. Progress is hard.”