First all-transgender football team debuts in Spain
The all-transgender squad played their first game in September. (Unsplash)
A football team consisting of all transgender men has debuted in a regional league in Spain, becoming the first to achieve federated status in Europe.
Fenix FC, named after the mythical phoenix which symbolises rebirth, competes in the fifth tier in the northwestern region of Catalonia after being incorporated into a local club in Barcelona.
Despite their first game last month ending in a 19-0 defeat, Fenix FC are making history by being an all-trans squad.
The team was started by Hugo Martinez, who faced prejudice and abuse when he transitioned and was later forced to leave the women’s football team he was a part of.
“I was a boy playing in the girls’ team, but without a changed ID, I wasn’t yet allowed to play with boys,” Martinez told Reuters, who said that other players, coaches, and spectators would insult and threaten him for being trans.
This prompted Martinez to set up his own team, putting out a call online for other trans men who wanted to play football in a safe and inclusive environment. It took him three years to get Fenix FC off the ground.
Captain Luke Ibanez joined Fenix FC after feeling hesitant about playing with non-trans men: “Fenix is a team of trans boys created entirely by trans boys, but I think it’s more than that – a family, a safe place where you can be free and express yourself however you want and how you really feel.”
The Catalan football association says that their men’s leagues have been mixed for the past two seasons and that players of any gender can participate.
Spain previously passed a groundbreaking trans rights bill to make it easier for trans people to change their legal gender identity.
The bill allows for trans people in Spain over the age of 16 to update their gender identity and name on official documents with a simple request, and confirmed three months later by the applicant for the change to become valid.
Equality minister Irene Montero previously said that the law “depathologies trans lives and guarantees trans people’s rights”.
But a tolerant country, like Rome, was not built in a day.
Discrimination against trans people continues in Spain, with 302 cases of discrimination or violence occurring against LGBTQ+ people in Catalonia in 2023 – roughly 25% of which were against transgender people – according to the Catalan Observatory Against LGBTphobia.
