{"id":29297,"date":"2026-04-15T13:11:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T07:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/?p=29297"},"modified":"2026-04-16T11:58:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T06:28:44","slug":"where-do-i-play-understanding-the-transgender-body-in-sport-through-football-is-a-pleasure-that-hurts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/where-do-i-play-understanding-the-transgender-body-in-sport-through-football-is-a-pleasure-that-hurts\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Do I Play?: Understanding the Transgender Body in Sport through “Football is a Pleasure that Hurts”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Football is a Pleasure that Hurts<\/em>, a quote taken from Eduardo Galeano\u2019s book, Football in Sun and Shadow<\/em> (1995), is the name of a comic I created that begins at a point in my life where I had just given up playing football professionally and had begun my medical transition. While my transition has moved in a linear manner, this short comic<\/a> highlights how the loss of playing a beloved sport and then giving up the idea of playing it professionally, complicates the already complex journey of my transition. In other words, while the journey of my transition has a beginning, middle and end, the grief and sadness that came with the loss of football is ever present and nonlinear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was six to seven months on testosterone when I began my Master\u2019s programme in 2023, and I was still acutely aware of and hesitant about not passing as a man. Although my body was changing, it did so slowly. In the first week, several of my classmates asked me my pronouns and identity. While this initially felt considerate, it soon became apparent that this care was selective: I was the only one being asked, because they could not clearly fit me into categories of being either a man or a woman. When I asked others the same questions, they often appeared offended, as though their gender was self-evident.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This experience underscores how deeply gendered our spaces and interactions are, and how trans and gender variant individuals have to constantly engage in gendered work to ease cisgender discomfort. L.A.B. Mathers, in their 2017 article, \u201cBathrooms, Boundaries, and Emotional Burdens: Cisgendering Interactions Through the Interpretation of Transgender Experience,\u201d identifies how in rigid gender-segregated spaces, cisgender panic emerges when bodies cannot be easily classified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sport is one such field that not only is heavily gender-segregated, it also denies access to and discriminates against athletes who do not properly fit into the strict gender binary. While my paper is primarily an exploration of this complicated relationship that I share with football, I want to begin by first talking about the current state of sports, especially in non-cis spaces, both professional and recreational.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her 2016 New York Times article, \u201cThe Humiliating Practice of Sex-Testing Female Athletes,\u201d Ruth Padawer does a profile of athlete Dutee Chand and how she was disqualified from competing professionally because her body crossed the testosterone limit a woman athlete is allowed to have. Padawer (2016) writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Dutee) Chand had no idea that her extraordinary showing in Taipei and at a national championship earlier that month had prompted competitors and coaches to tell the federation that her physique seemed suspiciously masculine: Her muscles were too pronounced, her stride was too impressive for someone who was only five feet tall. Three days after the ultrasound, the federation sent a letter titled \u201cSubject: Gender Verification Issue\u201d to the Indian government\u2019s sports authority. \u201cIt has been brought to the notice of the undersigned that there are definite doubts regarding the gender of an Athlete Ms. Dutee Chand,\u201d the letter read.<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many athletes like Dutee Chand, competing in the women\u2019s category, those who have always identified and lived as women, especially women of colour, have been made to undergo arbitrary sex testings, because their appearance is not \u201cproperly\u201d feminine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Clara Conheady writes in, \u201cUnearthing the Complexities of Sex Testing Elite Female Athletes,\u201d instead of a fascination with women breaking and setting sporting records, there is an extreme obsession with testosterone and how much and how little a woman athlete should have of it. These spaces believe that gender can be measured, that it exists in a vial (Hesse, 2019). Conheady (2019, p. 62-63) says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(sex and hormone testing) is viewed by some scholars as sexist and cissexist. As McClearen (2015) argues, the idea of testosterone being the \u2018key\u2019 to great athleticism is rooted in a sexist belief of the inferiority of women\u2026 Not only do organisations such as the IAAF see testosterone as an unfair advantage but also an illness which needs to be cured. This is cissexist in its assumption of women having to be lacking in testosterone to be valid, overlooking those who do not fit the gender binary. This sexist sport system ignores the bodies outside of normative categories, such as those who are intersex and transgender, exaggerating differences between men and women.<\/div>\n\n\n\n


Women\u2019s sports is so heavily policed and surveilled, the question of trans women competing is a distant dream. For instance, Donald Trump, starting in February 2025, made his stance clear that letting trans women and girls compete with athletes assigned female at birth violates Title IX, the decades old statute that bars federal funding for schools that discriminate on the basis of sex (Meckler; Lumpkin, 2026). He is not just barring professional trans athletes from competing, he is denying young, school going trans folks from playing and taking part in competitions at the school level. It is quite ironic how people are supporting this. In a recent Instagram reel posted by US based social influencer, Coach Jackie J, Jackie goes around asking anti-trans protesters in front of the Supreme Court \u2013apparently there to \u201csave women\u2019s sports\u201d \u2013 to name at least five women athletes. All of them answered proudly saying they do not watch women\u2019s sports!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is why the institution of sports fails those who fall outside the strict boundaries of the gender binary. However, this fluidity within the binary is never questioned when it comes to men\u2019s sports. As Conheady (2019, p. 63) points out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This issue (sex testing) is inherently sexist because the sex of male athletes is not questioned; they are allowed to have as much or as little testosterone as they were born with.<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It used to really bother me, that there was not much talk about trans masculine athletes in men\u2019s sports and for the longest time I believed that my inability to compete from the men\u2019s side post transition was a personal fault; that I had not trained hard enough and my lack in skill and athletic ability as compared to cis men was because I had been too lazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I began playing football recreationally again \u2013 a few years after I had left my team \u2013with a group in South Delhi, my unintentional choice to never try out for a men\u2019 s team made perfect sense. This group was majorly made up of cis men. I had hoped that two years of HRT would make me confident enough to talk and communicate loudly on field, demand the ball and command a few plays. I quickly understood the privilege that the women\u2019s locker room and training field was \u2013 it was competitive and training was rigorous, but it was healthy, safe and comfortable. Nobody was slurring or making fun of each other\u2019s insecurities. With this group of cis men, on most nights, there were comments on my height, how I looked like I was in school. The ridiculing and slurs when one made a mistake were harsh and made me underperform. I wasn\u2019t sure if telling people that I am trans would help or make it worse. I blamed myself again, telling myself that I was too timid and maybe did not have the passion and aggression it takes to play this sport. As someone who used to take pride in being my most confident self on field, I convinced myself that perhaps I had lost my touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But post writing Football is a Pleasure that Hurts<\/em> and evolving it into a larger piece of work that I am currently working on, this systemic otherisation has become more visible and not just in terms of football, but in other sports that I have played as well, both recreationally and competitively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was playing Ultimate Frisbee for a year when I was in college. A fairly new sport that has been becoming quite popular recently, Ultimate prides itself for being a non-toxic, mixed-gendered sport where there is no referee and disputes on field are handled and discussed by the players. The word mix-gendered is extremely misleading and only refers to the rule that there must be an equal number of men and women on the field at all times. It does not make any space for trans and gender variant athletes. I remember during one pick-up game, I had quite clearly mentioned my pronouns on the list. I had played with some of these people when I was pre-transition and still presenting as female, and unfortunately they made no efforts to accommodate my pronouns or identity despite me making it clear before the game. Instead I was asked strange questions about my appearance and was referred to by my dead name and wrong pronouns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, Gaysi <\/em>put out an article about the various trans exclusive sporting events and tournaments taking place across the country \u2013 the Jamshedpur Super League (JSL) launched its first ever transgender-only football league. It began in December and will now run for a period of six months where almost 70 trans athletes will get to play matches every Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Manipur, Ya_All is known to have India\u2019s first-ever trans men only football team. More teams have now formed across the state, made up of both trans men and women and all of them participate in the Queer Games organised by Ya_All itself. These spaces are becoming more popular and are extremely important especially for trans and gender variant individuals who have been denied access to organised sports. They also serve as spaces that are safe and non-toxic where queer athletes can show up as they are, without the added fear of being found out or ridiculed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, these are not solutions but alternatives to organised and professional sports. Trans exclusive spaces can also be trans exclusionary. Making spaces exclusively for trans and queer folks doesn\u2019t change the fact that professional and organised sports continuously and constantly discriminates against and otherises trans athletes. On March 26, 2026, the International Olympic Committee banned trans women<\/a> from competing in women\u2019s events. This new policy will now be put into effect in the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Queer and trans-only spaces are negotiations that we have settled on. What about trans and gender variant athletes who have been training day and night in the hope of getting selected to go to the Olympics, other major international sporting events or even just to get sports scholarships and access better professional facilities?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I grew up wanting to make a career out of football and play professionally. As a child I did not contemplate whether I would make it to the women\u2019s or men\u2019s team but it was still a dream that I had. I can go for as many recreational tournaments as I want and play competitively, but the grief of leaving behind that dream is something I will always have to live with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently Japanese football star, Marumi Yamazaki publicly made an announcement that he is trans. Yamazaki retired in 2023, after a decorated career, having played for the national team and his club, JEF United Chiba. Yamazaki wrote that transition was his second dream and that the reason he could retire from playing football was to make this dream come true (Factora, 2026). Yamazaki is 35 years old and most athletes retire around that age and perhaps it was his personal decision to start his transition now, but it\u2019s again one thing or the other \u2013 football or transition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember when I first started working on Football is a Pleasure that Hurts<\/em>, it just felt like a rant and the story felt too subjective. I had made it for a class on autobiographical writing where our final assignment was to write or create an autobiographical piece of our own. It was a confusing time, many of my friends and family who knew how much football meant to me, asked, \u201cAre you sure you want to start HRT so soon? Perhaps you should play a few more years now that you have got the chance.\u201d It was valid. But medical care seemed more and more urgent as the days passed and I could not ignore it any longer. It made me angry I couldn\u2019t. I had hoped to play through the pain of it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This comic began as an attempt to validate my experiences with sports as a trans man. Today, the longer piece that I am working on, has built on this comic and aims to come out as both an autobiographical and ethnographic graphic novel, challenging reductive understandings of the graphic novel as merely a visual form \u2013 thus, trying to tell a marginalised story through a marginalised form. Working on this project was also a process that helped me visualise the institutional discrimination and otherisation that fellow trans athletes and I have to continuously negotiate. While rationally I know this is an example of how institutions have failed us, there are days that I still blame myself in the presence of this grief, to the extent that the grief has started to feel more like the decision than my transition. It\u2019s a grief that I had sadly predicted would come my way, and stay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope that with time it gets easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article was originally presented as a paper at The Naz Foundation (India) Trust\u2019s Queer Mental Health Academic Conclave held on January 24, 2026 and later developed as an article for In Plainspeak.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bibliography<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Conheady, C. (2019) \u2018Unearthing the Complexities of Sex Testing Elite Female Athletes\u2019. Burgmann Journal<\/em>, 8 [Online]. Available at: https:\/\/studentjournals.anu.edu.au\/index.php\/burgmann\/article\/view\/698<\/a> (Accessed: 23 January 2026)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Hesse, M. (2019) \u2018We Celebrated Michael Phelps\u2019s Genetic Differences. Why Punish Caster Semenya for Hers?\u2019 The Washington Post, 2 May [Online]. Available at: https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/style\/we-celebrated-michael-phelpss- genetic-differences-why-punish-caster-semenya-for-hers\/2019\/05\/02\/93d08c8c-6c2b- 11e9-be3a-33217240a539_story.html <\/a>(Accessed: 23 January 2026).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Khan, F. (2024) \u2018India\u2019s First Transgender Football Club Gets Off the Ground for Inclusion and Equality\u2019. The Hindustan Times, 30 March [Online]. Available at: https:\/\/www.hindustantimes.com\/sports\/football\/indias-first-transgender-football- club-gets-off-the-ground-for-inclusion-and-equality-101711778758523.html <\/a>(Accessed: 23 January, 2026).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Mathers, L.A.B. (2017) \u2018Bathrooms, Boundaries, and Emotional Burdens: Cisgendering Interactions Through the Interpretation of Transgender Experience\u2019. Symbolic Interaction<\/em>, 40 (3) [Online]. Available at: https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/90011686<\/a> (Accessed: 22 January 2026).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Padawer, R. (2016). \u2018The Humiliating Practice of Sex-Testing Female Athletes\u2019, The New York Times, 28 June [Online]. Available at: https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/07\/03\/magazine\/the-humiliating-practice-of-sex- testing-female-athletes.html (Accessed: 22 January 2026).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  6. Galeano, E. (1995). Football in Sun and Shadow<\/em>. Mexico City: Siglo XXI.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  7. Hegde, I. (2024). \u2018Football is a Pleasure that Hurts\u2019, The Bombay Literary Magazine, December [Online]. Available at: https:\/\/bombaylitmag.com\/contribution\/imaan-hegde-issue60\/ <\/a>(Accessed 18 January, 2026).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  8. Rory. (2026). \u2018Breaking the Binary: How Queer and Trans Sports are Reshaping Indian Fields.\u2019 Gaysi Magazine, 20 January [Online]. Available at: https:\/\/gaysifamily.com\/lifestyle\/indias-first-transgender-football-league-makes-history\/<\/a> (Accessed: 23 January 2026).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  9. Factora, J. (2026). \u2018Japanese Pro Soccer Player Comes Out as Trans , Says He Retired to Fulfill Dream of Transition\u2019. THEM, 6 January [Online]. Available at: https:\/\/www.them.us\/story\/marumi-yamaki-japanese-soccer-player-trans<\/a> (Accessed: 23 January 2026).<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  10. Meckler, L; Lumpkin, L. (2026). \u2018Trump Administration Opens 18 New Probes Over Trans Athletes.\u2019 The Washington Post, 14 January [Online]. Available at: https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/education\/2026\/01\/14\/trump-administration-trans-athletes-investigations\/ <\/a>(Accessed: 23 January, 2026).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    Cover image by Tanmay Bivalkar<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I had hoped to play through the pain of it all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":612,"featured_media":29300,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5351,8],"tags":[5375,4985,5371,778,5370,5368,5372,5374,5369,5376,5353,5373,25,5367,4619,5365,436,5358,4695,5359,5366],"class_list":{"0":"post-29297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-the-self-and-sexuality","8":"category-voices","9":"tag-access-to-sports","10":"tag-body-and-identity","11":"tag-dutee-chand","12":"tag-gender-binary","13":"tag-gender-policing-in-sports","14":"tag-hormone-replacement-therapy","15":"tag-institutional-discrimination","16":"tag-lgbtqia-sports","17":"tag-queer-athletes","18":"tag-queer-sports-spaces","19":"tag-self-and-sexuality","20":"tag-sex-testing-in-sports","21":"tag-sexualities","22":"tag-sports-exclusion","23":"tag-trans-act-2019","24":"tag-trans-athletes","25":"tag-trans-bodies","26":"tag-trans-experiences","27":"tag-trans-masculinity","28":"tag-trans-rights-india","29":"tag-transgender-in-sports"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/612"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29297"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29365,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29297\/revisions\/29365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}