seven-month lockdown in 2020, I suddenly
found myself unable to do the thing I love.
Football is my therapy, my lifestyle. Without
it, I felt so empty.
But to play, I needed to make a sacrifice.
I had meetings with the Argentine FA, who
informed me that I had to comply with IOC
standards about transgender athletes. That
meant starting a treatment programme to
reduce my testosterone levels.
What would you do to play football? Well,
since you already know me, you know what
I did. I complied. I signed. I accepted it, even
if it’s completely discriminatory as it goes
against the physiology of your body.
The first tests were fine, so I didn’t have
to do anything. But then they found higher
levels and I had to commence this invasive
treatment. No one seems to care, though –
it’s the same old story. Your name is put
over a plate and then analysed under
a microscope millions of miles away,
as if you were part of an experiment.
Both team and individual sports are
treated in exactly the same way,
reducing the discussion to nanomoles
of testosterone per litre of blood and
archaic binary perspectives.
With this treatment I feel tired all the
time, and my emotions can get volatile –
it affects me physically and psychologically.
Sometimes I feel dizzy, or like my musclesaren’t responding normally. I’m weaker on
the pitch and in normal life. The treatment
can have serious long-term effects, too [one
Dutch study claims it can increase the risk of
breast cancer] and yet you have to decide:
to accept and play, or refuse and not play.
You can imagine how I would feel, how it
would affect me if I was told I wouldn’t be
permitted to play football any more because
of my testosterone levels.
There are plenty of people out there who
don’t care about what I’m doing, though, or
what I’m risking. They say, ‘Oh, but you’ve
got a natural advantage’, ‘You shouldn’t play’
and blah blah blah. However, the reality is
that I feel inferior; inferior to my team-mates
and to my opposition because of the affects
of the treatment.
It makes me wonder: are male footballers
ever studied? What would happen if certain
players had much higher testosterone levels
than what is deemed ‘normal’? But no one
would ever find out, because they’re never
tested. So, how come males never, women
sometimes and trans athletes always? It
gets like... So you’re a transgender athlete?
Well, if you really want to play, you’ll have to
offer something as a sacrifice in return. One
of your fingers must be chopped off to prove
you want it badly enough.
Football is about far more than athleticism.
It’s not just about who runs the fastest or
shoots with more power – otherwise some
athletes would be good footballers and
they’re clearly not. It’s about skill, training,
diet and many more aspects.
When Usain Bolt was unbeatable on the
track, everyone celebrated him as the king.
Had he been a woman, people would have
been demanding to know about his body,
his biology, casting doubts and shadows –
as they did with Caster Semenya. That’s
the world we live in, where women
are always under scrutiny, and it’s
simply unacceptable.
At least now I’m sitting at the table
and trying to discuss things from theTop to bottom
Mara started out
at Toronto City;
her ever-growing
medal collection;
on the ball for
Villa San Carlosfor an answer. It still amazes me to think of
these girls that were seen as broken in the
eyes of a male-dominated society. Weirdos.
Who says that a sport is for boys and not for
girls? Why should teenagers have to follow
those guidelines or feel guilty if they don’t?
Then you remember that 75 years ago,
women in Argentina weren’t even allowed to
vote – and that not long ago, homosexuality
was described as a mental condition or even
a disease. I’m not saying this with anger, I’m
just trying to remind everyone that we should
open our minds with love and education
instead of hate and exclusion. Now, luckily,
that reality is changing all over the world.
When Argentina passed the Gender Identity
Law in May 2012, I was able to change my
identity. I was 18 years old and my ID card
finally said the right name and gender, but
I still knew things weren’t going to be easy
for me. If I was looking for a job, for example,
I wouldn’t get a call back – merely the odd
look. You quickly get the message: I’d rather
have someone not like you. I was trying to
do some manicure work or assist in beauty
salons, but it never lasted.
These kinds of moments can be defining in
any person’s life; you can be pretty haunted
by dark thoughts if you ask for opportunities,
only to get violence and exclusion in return.
It was football that opened doors again, as
I found my first club, Toronto City. They were
in the Liga LIFIPA (Independent Platense
Youth Football League), with a manager who
announced in front of everyone, ‘The ID card
says she is a girl and she will be treated as
a girl. Period’. It was just a regional league,
but I still got plenty of stick from opposition
players – and especially fans. Being able to
play was so worth it, though.
It was very different when I discovered that
Villa San Carlos, a top-flight club in Primera
Division A, were interested in signing me. The
night before making my debut last December,
I couldn’t possibly sleep. I woke up every hour
envisioning the match, and the dream that
would become a reality. I never could have
imagined the TV cameras, the international
press... the expectancy. We lost that game
against Lanus, but I’d made up my mind that
the only thing I wanted was to enjoy every
minute. I think I’d earned that right.
I understood that the milestone wasn’t
a personal thing purely for me, but all of us
in the LGBTQ+ community. I received many
encouraging messages from other players,
within the Argentina women’s national team
and also from abroad.
There were some unexpected aspects, too
- some stress, because my mobile phone was
exploding with interview requests coming
from all around the world. I didn’t know how
to handle it, whether it was good or bad, and
what they really wanted from me. Lorena,
my agent, helped me a lot in understanding
how to handle the sudden fame; seeing who
was genuinely interested in getting to know
me and my life, and making sure that I was
treated with respect.
Like for many other people, the coronavirus
pandemic made everything worse. With the
FourFourTwo December 2021 69BETWEEn
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