Ruck You
In the society we live in, we are by and large shoved into boxes. These boxes can relate to age, race, social class, ethnicity, nationality, physical ability or disability, many more. The first box that we’re shoved into, against our will, now often even before birth, is a gender box.
From the moment we are first born, our gender is affirmed for us by society and most parents are the enforcers of this societal divide. We are immediately adorned in clothes of a certain colour to confirm our gender. We are given toys deemed appropriate to our gender. Our rooms are decorated to reflect that gender. In fact, the very first question asked isn’t “are they healthy” it’s “is it a boy or a girl”.
There is no more defining question in society than that first question about who we are, because society attaches so much value to the answer. In a patriarchal society, boys automatically have expectations set for them that are narrow and consuming; be manly, be tall, be devoid of emotion, be strong and stoic. The pay off for adhering to this, is social priority.
For girls, we must be gentle, caring, emotionally available….but not too emotionally available, and above all else, we must be pretty and sexually attractive and of value to men.
Inclusivity in rugby
Of course, there are limited ways in which it is socially acceptable to push the boundaries of these expectations. I would argue presently, more so for women. And to me, rugby has always been a space where women could push back a little bit more.
It’s a space where strength and aggression are expected and valuable, perhaps more so than any other sport. It’s where being pretty or sexually attractive holds little to no value, and as a result the women can shake off the shackles of the pressure that comes with that. It’s an outlet for that part of our being we cannot normally express in social settings without being judged and labelled by the mass of gender conformers.
As a result, rugby has become a space where you will find the greatest spectrum of femininity, and lack thereof. Women who conform and don’t conform on every level, find a sense of belonging in rugby spheres. Women’s rugby has a huge number of gay and bisexual women. Frankly, it’s resulted in many relationships and marriages, including my own.
It’s also a space where you find a vast array of women who embrace their masculine side or the traits in themselves that would be harshly judged by society as masculine. It’s where strong women, overweight women, tall women, small women, fast women and aggressive women can thrive and be equally celebrated.
As a result, women’s rugby has organically become an inclusive space, regulated by an accepting community of people who have cultivated a safe haven for all, or at least most.
The Trans Bans
However, the organisations that oversee women’s sport have of late been seeking to regulate this safe haven. A once inclusive space is now proactively excluding people under the veil of our safety, and against our consent. Trans women have been banned from participation in women’s rugby across Britain and Ireland in the last two to three years, despite minimal numbers participating in Britain and no known trans women registered to play in Ireland at all.
This ban has come in without consultation with any of the players, and without anyone from within the women’s game asking for it. It, unfortunately, appears to be politically motivated and driven by people who seek to push trans people even further into the fringes of society, alienating and isolating them. Women’s sport is simply being used as a conduit, a tool. Women’s rugby, and many other sports, have successfully been weaponised by outside forces against an already marginalised community.
The ‘science’ used to underpin the bans have been misappropriated. Instead of using cohorts of trans and cis women to determine if there are safety issues or unfair advantages, the studies used samples of men versus women, pretending that trans women who have medically transitioned have not undergone broad physical, hormonal and physiological changes that essentially nullify the physiological gains that male puberty broadly provides. It also bans those who have not gone through male puberty at all.
The argument that some are too tall, too heavy, too strong, too broad is utterly betrayed by the community of cis women we have playing the sport, with women of all sizes, weights, heights and those able to leg press more than the average man.
But frankly, that’s not really the ultimate issue. Women’s rugby has always been about inclusive participation and the challenging of both external and our own internal expectations. The cis women who play our sport are there to challenge themselves physically, to go up against those opponents of all sizes and all athletic ability and to prove our own abilities.
A ban on women not considered ‘woman enough’ by those not even involved in our sport undermines why we play the sport in the first place. To suggest we need our sport carefully controlled and protected, lest we find it too hard or too sore is utterly condescending. In reality, it’s incredibly damaging to those still allowed to participate, because many of those are already pushing the envelope of gender expectations and as a result are being questioned and maligned with accusations of playing illegally. Our once safe space is now one of hostility.
The truth is, we don’t need the bumper lanes to feel like we can compete. We don’t need barriers to ring fence the game and exclude people, who just like us, want to play this wonderful sport and find solace from the burden of gender expectations in society.
And now the push back has begun
On June 1st this year, the inaugural Ruck You match will take place in Oslo at the largest LGBTQ+ rugby festival in the world, the Union Cup. This match will involve both cis and trans women, including many ex-international players. It seeks to showcase trans participation in the game and bust the myths being spread in popular culture.
In what is possibly the perfect form of solidarity and protest, cis women are actively including trans women to prove that they are of no threat but are in fact welcome in our spaces. Organised by retired Red Rose Sasha Acheson, and supported by high profile players such as Meg Jones, Heather Fisher, Elis Martin and Alycia Washington, it will show the positive reality of what trans inclusion in women’s rugby means.
Please, donate if you can, to support this wonderful event.
Irish Women's Rugby Supporters Club
Ailbhe O'Nolan