Renowned football journalist Nicky Bandini comes out as transgender
Nicky Bandini. (Twitter)
Sports writer Nicky Bandini has come out as transgender with a moving Twitter video and an article for the Guardian.
Bandini has been a sports journalist for 13 years, writing for publications including the Guardian, ESPN and Talksport.
Some personal news…https://t.co/6DhG9cor9G pic.twitter.com/MxVPRpwMnH
— Nicky Bandini (@NickyBandini) August 16, 2019
Writing on August 16, Bandini said, “I am transgender.”
“I know that sentence will come as a shock to many people reading it. Even after struggling with gender dysphoria – a sense of discomfort with and dissociation from the body that life dealt me, and the expectations that go with it – for almost my whole life, it took me the best part of three-and-a-half decades to be able to say it out loud.
“There it is, though, in black and white. I have written my last article under the name Paolo Bandini. From now on, it will be Nicky.”
Bandini said that she wasn’t aware of any other trans sports writers or broadcasters working in the UK.
She also pointed to the Women’s World Cup this summer as a possible “turning point” for LGBT+ people in football.
“The Women’s World Cup this summer offered a glimpse of an alternate reality, in which queer protagonists could stand to the fore,” she said.
However, she acknowledged that “we are certainly not there yet.”
She added: “I would much prefer not to be writing this column, and to exist in a world where my transition did not require any comment at all. But since we do not yet live in that world, here I am. All I ask is for respect and kindness – for me, and for transgender people in general – at a time when those commodities seem to be in ever-shorter supply.”
