When players from TRUK United FC scored their first goal on a rainy March evening in front of hundreds of fans at London’s Champion Hill stadium, the sense of triumph was overwhelming.
The match against Dulwich Hamlet FC was no ordinary one – for the first time ever, an 11-a-side team comprised entirely of transgender men had taken to the pitch on Trans Day of Visibility for a game no one would forget.
While they may have lost 8-1 at the final whistle, the team succeeded in whipping up demand for trans-inclusive spaces, with one image of the match racking up more than four million views on Twitter.
The inaugural game has since prompted thousands of people from across the world to get in touch with messages of support and questions on how to set up their own team.
But this isn’t the first time the LGBTQ+ football club has made history.
Last year, TRUK United FC assembled the first ever team comprised entirely of trans women in a match against Dulwich Women’s FC, reigniting conversations around the importance of inclusivity in sport.
The introduction of the world’s first all trans-masc team comes amid the growing weaponisation of trans inclusion in sport, with UK Athletics becoming the latest sporting body to ban trans women from participating fully across its events in March.
Pride Month 2023
Pride Month is here, with members of the LGBTQ+ community and their allies celebrating their identities, accomplishments, and reflecting on the struggle for equality throughout June.
This year, Metro.co.uk is exploring the theme of family, and what it means to the LGBTQ+ community.
Find our daily highlights below, and for our latest LGBTQ+coverage, visit our dedicated Pride page.
- The LGBTQ+ books we love to read to our kids
- City of just 11,000 people defiantly hosts its first Pride and thousands turn up
- ‘We’re from countries where being gay is illegal – here’s why UK Pride is so important’
It follows the decisions of FINA, British Cycling and the English, Welsh and Irish Rugby Unions to suspend their gender participation policies, effectively preventing trans women from taking part in competitions.
Findings from an OutSport survey published in 2019 reveal more than half of trans adults feel excluded from playing certain sports or have stopped playing altogether as a result of exclusion based on their gender identity.
For TRUK United FC, a safe-haven for players all too often afraid of taking part in football for fear of exclusion, the need to create inclusive spaces amid the global erosion of trans rights is more important than ever.
And the LGBTQ+ club which was founded by the world’s first transgender referee, Lucy Clark, in 2021, has risen to the challenge, organising a number of matches for its all new trans-masc team, including one in July to coincide with Brighton’s Trans Pride.
For Pride Month, Metro.co.uk spoke to the players on the significance of its historic match against Dulwich FC, and their message to young trans people discouraged from participating in sport.
‘We’re spreading hope’
The world’s first transgender referee recognised by the FA, it was the fear of rejection that almost convinced Lucy Clark, 51, to hang up her whistle in 2018. However, after a spate of heart attacks, the TRUK United FC founder embraced her identity, with a renewed conviction football should be a place for everyone.
‘Football has just always been such a massive part of my life, especially when I was going through my teenage years. I knew what was going on inside my head in terms of my gender identity, but I couldn’t tell anyone – so I threw myself into football because you forget about everything else that’s going on in the world.
I’ve known I’ve been trans for all of my life, but I never told anyone until I told my wife, Avril, quite early on in our relationship. I couldn’t go through the rest of my life with someone living this lie, but we both lived a double life for a while because I was worried about how it would affect everyone.
Eventually I couldn’t suppress it anymore and I first went to the gender identity clinic in 2015. I started on hormones and changed my name legally, but it was getting harder to hide myself from the football world, to the point when I decided 2018 was going to be my last season.
I thought the football world wouldn’t accept me, but then I suffered a number of heart attacks when I was 45. It was while spending Christmas in hospital that I decided I would continue refereeing and come out, so I gave the FA, who I’ve been working with for 12 years, the heads up to let them know what I’d be doing. I’ve refereed more than 1,000 games, and I couldn’t just give it up.
From day one of my coming out I had people contacting me telling me that I’d inspired them, but I also had a lot of people reaching out to me saying they wish there was a football team they could play for and feel included.
I first floated the idea of setting up TRUK United FC at the beginning of 2021 and there was a massive response. We had no kits and started the club with no money, but we played our first game in September of that year.
We’ve now got 200 players on the books from all over the UK, and it’s incredible to see the amount of joy we’ve brought to people over the last 18 months.
We played our match last year with the first ever team in the world of trans women, and since then we’ve been trying to find ways to outdo ourselves – so we decided to set up a team made up entirely of trans men. We’re constantly finding ways to spread hope for those trans people who’ve been discouraged from playing sports.
Recently we had a player make their debut for us during a match and I could see his joy in finally being able to put on a football kit again without fear of exclusion – it was amazing. This is how we started, and it’s absolutely incredible to see that we’re getting that exposure. We’re spreading hope and making history, and to those out there who’ve seen the various bans on trans participation in sport and might feel discouraged – follow your dreams.’
‘I couldn’t anticipate the level of response’
For Arthur Webber, 25, captaining the first ever all trans-masc team is something his young self would have barely believed.
‘I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t into football. In-fact, my mum likes to jokingly blame my dad for making me trans by making me watch the 1998 World Cup as a baby, so it’s very much been in my blood since I was born.
I didn’t start supporting a team until I was seven when I had dreams of scoring for Arsenal. I would often play football in the back garden before joining my local boys’ team. Luckily, my dad knew the coach and he also knew that I would flatly refuse to play for the girls’ team.
I didn’t know what being trans actually meant until I was 13 when I came to terms that I was going to be different from the other boys and that being a professional footballer wouldn’t happen for me.
As soon as I moved to secondary school, I was told that I could only play in teams on the basis of sex. That was difficult, because I wasn’t aware of transitioning or that it was something I could do.
After reading an article that briefly mentioned trans men in it, I realised that not transitioning wasn’t an option – even if it meant having to sacrifice football because I couldn’t stay in the girls’ team.
I stopped following Arsenal so closely thinking that I couldn’t play football anywhere. Even watching Match of The Day was too much. It was sad because I was moving away from something that connected me with a lot of friends and was a sport I cared greatly about.
When I came out at 20, I joined Facebook groups to connect me to LGBT+ football, but I didn’t become aware of TRUK United until I was 23. When I did, I knew I wanted to be a part of them having seen them assemble the first ever all trans-feminine team for their match on Trans Day of Visibility.
After that I got talking with management and played games for the all-inclusive team back in July last year. Lucy sat me down and said she wanted to recreate the same match but for trans men, and asked if I’d be up for being captain of the team. We both put call-outs for players on social media and soon had a dozen or so people approach us wanting to play.
We had a mix of players from semi-professional league players to those who hadn’t kicked a ball for years, so trying to make sure that everybody had a great time I knew would be nerve-wracking.
It was just nice to get onto a pitch and be around a group of people with very similar stories to me while kicking a ball around. We didn’t expect to win, because many of us have never even met before. In the warm up before the game we only had five minutes to try and learn each other’s names.
But when we scored that was a really empowering moment for us all. We were celebrating being able to create a space for people, rather than our performance. Since the match, we’ve had hundreds of people reaching out expressing an interest. Now, we have players from all over the UK play for us, not just London. We’re TRUK United for a reason.’
‘There’s always a place for trans people in sport’
Freddie, 26, had played football from childhood but says that he could never have imagined he’d be part of a history-making team.
‘I’d say compared to some of the other guys on the TRUK United team, I’m a bit of an outlier. Because I transitioned quite early as a teenager and then I took the approach of going stealth – I didn’t disclose to anybody after I left university that I was trans which did create certain stresses in terms of hiding aspects of yourself when playing on other teams.
There’s always been an element of being a little bit guarded, especially around those who don’t know me, and a fear of what would happen if they did discover I was trans. Although it helped me to live my life, it isolated me and until I discovered the trans-masc team, I was the only trans person I knew.
I really wanted to play with people who were like me and actually wanted to be in a changing room with those who were like me and faced similar challenges in everyday life. I wanted to show that there’s no reason we are less than other men.
I can’t think of a time where I’ve met a group of strangers and felt comfortable in such a short amount of time – when we were warming up, we were trying to learn each other’s names, but there was still a really strong sense of camaraderie which is something I’ve never really experience before.
I’v played football since I was a child, but I didn’t think when I was transitioning that I would be walking onto a pitch as part of the first ever all trans-masc team, and it wasn’t until we scored our first goal and I saw the reaction of the crowd that I didn’t realise just how big this was.
Being part of that historic event made me realise that there is always a place for trans people in sport.’
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