17 - Renegade.

Growing up young women were not given many options to assert themselves physically. Socially conditioned to believe their genetic make-up was not designed for it, they have been quietly ushered into more passive work and recreational activities. This narrative might work for some, but as someone who was female identified at birth, I was also born with a desire for physical assertion.

As a toddler I was called ‘rough’, bashing and clashing away at my toys. As I got a bit older it turned into ‘tough’, rumbling and tumbling with my mates. As an adult the language became ‘angry and aggressive’ and there was no place for it anymore. I still felt it, but I didn’t have anywhere to put it so it became oppressed energy inside me.

From a young age men were given opportunities for that physical contact I desired, like football and wrestling. It was encouraged. Supposedly it let’s them get it out of their system in a controlled environment so they don’t take it off the field. Though looking at the assault charges mounting up against football players, one could probably argue otherwise. But what if it’s not just cis men that needed an outlet for their physical energy?

Sport is a magnet for people like me. Only most of the popular sports I could access were non-contact sports for women. I got into soccer and touch football but it never quite hit the spot. In grade ten there was an opportunity to play in an Australian Rules round robin tournament. It was supposed to be only for seniors but I was strong and new how to kick a ball so I convinced the PE teacher to let me play.

It was glorious. I accidentally knocked out a player out in my first game ploughing through packs like a ten pin bowling ball. I loved it! I loved every bump and every tackle. I had been holding all that in for years.

The competition came and went and I was left wanting. It stopped being appropriate for boys to wrestle with me and most girls weren’t interested. Every now and then i’d come across one I knew had a fire in them too. I’d stalk them like prey and they knew it. Little bumps and shoves, testing each other out. We’d wait until there was a space and break out into full wrestles. Friends would laugh at first but then look worried, saying we were taking it too far. They didn’t understand, we needed this. We wanted a physicality that had been denied to us because of our birth gender.

It wasn’t until many years later that I came back into contact with football. I joined a local team and just like that I was surrounded by that fire. Like me, most of them had been repressed from contact sport, forced to play games that never quite met the need. Now in our safe space with permission to be our aggressive competitive selves, we thrive off each other. Thrilled at the opportunity to use our bodies as weapons. Grinning as we line each other up for an attack. Applauding the hardest knocks and comparing the biggest bruises. We weren’t spectators anymore.

Physicality is not just for cis hetero men. Our team is bursting with women and gender-diverse players that challenge the idea that masculinity belongs to cismen. That being strong and fierce, rough and tough, is outside the realms of femininity.

It is here alongside my teammates that we are learning how to create a new space for people like me. People who don’t fit within the tight binary of male/female sports. Here surrounded by renegades that understand what it is like to defy social expectations of gender. That have been fighting for space in a male dominated world. Fighting for recognition. I'm asking them to make space for me too. Asking that we fight the battle together.

I can understand people who dismiss team sports and “sportsball” because granted it is not for everyone. But for some of us, it is a place where we can feel connected. It can shrink a large and unmanageable world into something we have more control over. More accountability. More representation. It creates a security blanket that you can wear out in the world because you know you have a whole team at your back if you needed it.

This is why transphobia and homophobia have no place in sport. Because so many of us call this place home, and we need it to feel safe. So back off.