Trans People in Sport?! It’s More Likely Than You Think...

“My Body is Not Your Business” is a collection of writing, artwork, and ideas created by the spectacularly smart and talented Safe Spaces group of Comics Youth. The focus of this project is to challenge the body expectations pushed onto women, non-binary people, and the LGBTQIA+ community.

From gender stereotypes to diet culture and the toxicity of “thinspiration” to pushing the message that every body size, shape and ability deserves to be celebrated equally. The message? Your body is nobody’s business but yours.

In our first awesome piece of writing from the project, James talks about his own personal experiences with facing the challenges of body expectations as a trans man trying to navigate a space for himself within sports.

Let’s talk about being trans in sport. This has been a hotly debated topic for years, because as we all know, the media loves to hate trans people. Trans athletes are constantly misgendered, dehumanised and criticised for “biological advantages” that make it “unfair” for us to play competitively. These issues make it almost impossible to enter the world of professional sports, and even amateur players like myself face gatekeeping. Here is my experience of trying to navigate team sports as your average 19-year-old trans man.

Before I started transitioning I was a fairly active kid – I played football during the school holidays, went swimming and did gymnastics weekly, and even took up ju-jitsu for a couple of years. As you would expect, when I came out as male at 16, even thinking about taking part in sports became trickier. In my head if I was to play openly as a trans man it would go one of two ways:

1.       Try to join a men’s team and be rejected because of my assigned sex

2.       Try to join a women’s team and be rejected because of my gender identity

Of course I could have looked for mixed teams, but it seemed like an unfair compromise; cisgender people don’t have to think this hard about which team they play for, so why did I have to settle for the “gender neutral” option? I resigned myself to the fact that I’d probably never play sports as an out trans man.

Even though I’d seen plenty of trans athletes online, I didn’t feel like I was strong enough or confident enough to do it myself and face that same backlash. It’s also important to note that I’m generally stealth in my personal life, so I didn’t want to broadcast what I consider to be a private part of myself just so I could join a sports team. It all seemed far too stressful and complicated for something that was supposed to be fun.

Not long after coming out my mum told me about a nearby inclusive rugby team that had just formed. At the time I was too young to play for them (I was only just about to turn 17) but they told me if I was still interested, I could sign up when I was 18. At this point I was determined to at least try it, so I waited over a year and went to my first training session in February 2019.

My team is part of International Gay Rugby, an organisation that aims to eliminate homophobia in the sport by forming teams that are inclusive of everyone, regardless of their sexuality or sporting ability. Even though I knew I would probably be accepted by the whole team, I chose to only disclose my trans identity to my team’s welfare officer at first. He was incredibly accommodating with making sure I had a separate changing room arranged for training sessions and respected my decision to remain stealth (he’s honestly so lovely). I didn’t want the other guys to see me as the trans player. I just wanted to play rugby like everyone else.

As time went on and I began to feel more comfortable with the team I came out to a few more individual players. However, it wasn’t until I started testosterone in September 2019 that I came out to the whole team through a Facebook post.

The response was overwhelmingly supportive, and I got a couple of hugs that evening at training! I’m aware that at least a few of my teammates will have been aware of my trans identity without me telling them, but I really appreciated the fact that none of them confronted me about it before I was ready. To be honest nothing really changed once I’d come out, the great thing about the team is that they all look out for each other. It’s like having 20 older brothers.

Despite having this extremely positive experience, I worry about what will happen if I keep playing sports in the future. I’m aware that I’ll probably struggle to join a team that isn’t specifically LGBTQ+ inclusive like IGR teams. Fighting to be treated the same as everyone else is exhausting, but I’m not the only one who feels like this. In fact, a fellow teammate (and close friend) has told me that my openness helped her come to terms with her own trans identity! I hope that my experience shows other trans people that there are safe spaces in sports for us, and although it can be difficult, we don’t have to choose between being ourselves and doing what we love.