They zip around the club, armed with masks, cushions, and sealers. As they squat for space on the hardwood floor, they push, nudge, and often slam.
The Long Island Roller Rebels’ women’s biggest challenge, however, is occurring outside the suburban strip-maze ball club where they are gearing up for the upcoming wheel derby season.
The almost 20-year-old amateur group is suing a region leader for an executive order that prohibits teams with trans players from playing in county-run parks and fields.
The team’s legitimate work, backed by the New York Civil Liberties Union, has thrust it into the nationwide debate over the right of trans players.
Amanda Urena, the team’s vice president, said there was never any problem the party would take a walk.
“The entire point of derby has been to be this thing where people feel welcome,” said the 32-year-old Long Island indigenous, who competes as “Wavy Pan” and identifies as gay, at a new practice at United Skates of America in Seaford.
We want transgender women to know that we want you to enjoy with us, and that we will make sure that this is a safe place for you to enjoy.
More than 100 people services in the state of almost 1.4 million south of Queens are affected by the edict from Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman in February.
Sports teams and groups that want to play or practice in county-run parks may make a disclosure as to whether they permit or not permit trans women or girls. Any organization that allows them to perform will be denied a force, though men’s teams and clubs aren’t affected.
As part of an avalanche of anti-trans legislation on many topics in recent years, bills restricting transgender students’ ability to play sports have already been passed in some 24 states.
Following a vote on the school board last year, one of Manhattan’s largest school districts is now considering a ban.
On March 19, 2024, Long Island Roller Rebels process at United Skates of America in Seaford, New York. AP
In order to host practices and games on county-owned rinks in the upcoming season, the Roller Insurgents requested a state force this month.
Since the business is accessible to anyone who identifies as a person and has one transgender person already on the roster, they say they expect to become denied.
The group, which has two groups and about 25 players, may struggle to recruit as a result of the ban, Urena said. It will also struggle to sponsor competitions with different leagues.
State Attorney General Letitia James has requested that the state revoke the ban, alleging that it infringes state anti-discrimination legislation, while Blakeman has requested that a federal judge uphold it.
Bruce Blakeman, the administrative of Nassau County, addresses a press event on March 6, 2024, in Mineola, New York. AP
It isn’t surprising that a roller derby league has become the target of opposition because, according to Margot Atwell, who played in a women’s league in New York City and wrote “Derby Life,” a book about roller derby, the sport has long been a haven for queer and transgender women.
The game, which dates back to at least the 1930s and reached its height in the 1970s, sees two teams compete around a monitor as their designated “jammer” presses on against the other athletes, who are allowed to use their shoulders, chest, and arms to slow them down.
The most recent revival, which started in the early 2000s and has been supported by LGBTQ+ people, is frequented by leagues that take part in Pride parades and play fundraising games, according to Atwell.
“You come in here and you say, ‘I’m a trans woman. I’m a nonbinary person. I’m genderqueer.’ Okay? We accept you,” said Caitlin Carroll, a Roller Rebel who competes as “Catastrophic Danger”. “The world is scary enough. You ought to have a place where you can be safe.”
Blakeman has stated that he wants to ensure that female athletes can compete safely and fairly.
He held a news conference last week with Caitlyn Jenner, who won Olympic gold in the men’s decathlon in 1976 and later underwent a gender transition.
Jenner, a Republican who’s frequently at political odds with the greater transgender community, has endorsed the ban.
Blakeman, a Republican who was elected in 2021, has said constituents asked his office to act.
Caitlin Carroll, a member of the Long Island Roller Rebels, poses for a photo on March 19, 2024, during a recent practice. AP
The team’s legitimate work, backed by the New York Civil Liberties Union, has thrust it into the nationwide debate over the right of trans players. AP
Many opponents, however, point out that he has acknowledged there haven’t been any local complaints involving transgender players playing on women’s teams and that the ban is political posturing.
“This is a solution in search of a problem,” said Emily Santosus, a 48-year-old transgender woman on Long Island who hopes to join a women’s softball team. “We’re not bullies. We’re the ones that get bullied.”
The ones who will suffer most aren’t elite athletes, but children still trying to navigate their gender identities, added Grace McKenzie, a transgender woman who plays for the New York Rugby Club’s women’s team.
The 30-year-old Brooklyn resident said, “Cruel is the only word I can use to describe it.” “Kids are using sports at that age to build relationships, make friendships, develop teamwork skills, leadership skills, and, frankly, just help shield them from all the hate they face as transgender kids already.”
Each side makes reference to limited research to support their position in the larger discussion about trans women in sports. And bans frequently fail to distinguish between girls and women who used puberty blockers as part of their transition, which stunted the development of a male-typical physique, and those who didn’t, as one New York advocate pointed out.
According to Juli Grey-Owens, the leader of Gender Equality New York, the order in Nassau County puts some younger trans girls at greater risk by potentially pitting them against boys.
On March 19, 2024, during their practice at United Skates of America, two Long Island Roller Rebels collide. AP
“They are not hitting puberty, so they’re not growing, they’re not getting that body strength, the endurance, the agility, the big feet, the large legs,” Grey-Owens said.
According to Shane Diamond, a transgender man who plays recreational LGBTQ+ ice hockey in New York City, the ban could even result in cisgender female athletes who are strong and muscular being falsely labeled transgender and disqualified, as has happened elsewhere.
Any young woman who doesn’t fit the stereotypical definition of femininity and womanhood is at risk of having her gender questioned or gender policed, according to Diamond.
According to a poll conducted by the Washington Post-University of Maryland in 2022, 55% of Americans opposed allowing transgender women and girls to compete against other transgender women and girls in high school sports, and 58% opposed it for college and professional sports.
Blakeman has stated that he wants to ensure that female athletes can compete safely and fairly. AP
According to two cisgender female athletes, according to Jenner, men are stronger than women, so it will never be fair if transgender athletes are permitted to compete.
“There is a chance I would get hurt in those situations,” said Trinity Reed, 21, who plays lacrosse at Nassau County’s Hofstra University.
Mia Babino, 18, plays field hockey at the State University of New York at Cortland and plans to transfer to Nassau County’s Molloy University.
She said, “We’ve worked very hard to get where we are and play at the college level.”
But that attitude goes against everything that athletic competition is about, and it sells women and their potential short, according to Urena of the Roller Rebels.
“If people gave up playing sports because they thought they were going to lose, we wouldn’t have a sports industry,” they said. “Because of this, I enjoy playing against faster and stronger people.”
