“Stop being so strong”. These are not words one would normally hear on a football field. Australian rules football is a game that derives its strength from the different sizes of its participants – from your ruck to your rover, the different skill levels between the stoic back pocket and the flashy forward flank, and of course, the different physical strength of the players taking to the field every weekend. Regardless of how strong any player is, our coaches implore us to exhibit all of our strength, all of the time. We must be strong over the ball, strong in the contest, take a strong mark, lay a strong tackle or even kick long and strong towards goal.

“Stop being so strong”. These were the last words I expected to hear from an opposition player, who, in my most recent game playing for the St Kilda Sharks, grabbed me by the collar and drew me aggressively towards her face. My coach had given me the role of being physical, turning every loose ball into a hard ball for our opponents, and I was playing my role well; apparently too well.

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It was clear to me that “stop being so strong” was not about how I was playing football. It was about who I am. As a transgender person you get used to the coded language and the snide remarks. You live daily with the micro aggressions, the mockery, the hate. And here on the football field the message was delivered clearly: “Stop being so strong.” From the day we can talk we are taught that men are stronger than women, a fallacy and a farce in equal measure that many people still consider gospel. “Stop being so strong” meant “stop being a man”. Stop expecting to be welcome in women’s spaces. Stop being who you are meant to be.

I recall grabbing my opponent by the collar like she had to me and loudly exclaiming that there’s nothing wrong with being strong. I am proud to be a strong woman. And the strength I bring to the football field every week isn’t measured by muscles that have atrophied to almost nothing as estrogen alters my body into the shape it was always supposed to be. My strength lies in the way in which I sacrifice my body for my team every week, for my teammates, my coach and our supporters.

It takes strength to go days without sleep after a game because of the pain;strength to fight through and sacrifice your body again the next week. This most recent weekend, I sustained my 15th broken bone in 25 years playing both men’s and women’s football. But even the most innocuous games take strength: strength to walk off the field, legs scuffed and torn open from the dry, pock-marked suburban ovals, knees swollen to the size of grapefruits. It takes strength to manage the concussions, the bruised ribs, bruised lungs, and bruised kidney that has had me pissing blood this season. It takes a strength of will to make the next contest despite your whole body being racked with pain, to get to that contest and lay another tackle anyway – over and over again until the siren says you can stop.

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“Stop being so strong”. Last October when the AFL denied Hannah Mouncey the right to nominate for the AFLW draft, their reasoning as to why could easily have been summarised into those four words. With no meaningful consultation with transgender health professionals or with LGBTIQA+ advocacy groups like Proud2Play, the AFL decided their limited knowledge of trans bodies carried more weight than the words and experiences of transgender people themselves.

Ten months later, we still front up every week, not knowing if we’re allowed to compete at the highest level, or if we’re truly welcome in this space, to feel part of a game that has meant so much to us our whole lives. At the community level, when an opposition player uses words that imply I’m not welcome, or where an opposition coach yells that I’m a woman now, so I should play like a girl, I know that those words are fed by the AFL’s dismissive attitude to our very humanity as transgender people.

“Stop being so strong.” The truth is, I’m stronger now than I ever have been, and I’m not going to let any opponent, not even the AFL, hold me back.