I am a woman, a trans woman if you prefer, but a woman nonetheless.
I was born with a body that didn’t match the way that I was meant to interact with the world around me. It was decades before words were coined that I could use to understand and describe myself. The bodily incongruence was confusing and discomforting and led to decades of chronic depression and a strong reluctance to interact with the world around me.
One of the few ways that I was able to interact with the world was through playing the glorious game of field hockey. I don’t remember ever not playing hockey when I was young. Minkey and junior hockey weren’t yet a thing, so I played backyard hockey with my family until I was old enough to play in the local competition in my mid teens.
My parents both played. Most of my aunts and uncles on my father’s side played. In fact, so many of my relatives played hockey in our small town, there was for a time a local mixed hockey team called The Tickles. Hockey was part of my family’s DNA. None of us were particularly talented, as I recall, but it gave us all great pleasure.
I played with four clubs between the ages of 16 and 26 as I moved from home to the University of Sydney. I then had a two-year break from hockey when I travelled overseas, apart from a single delightful game for a club in Yorkshire, England with a friend that I met whilst walking the West Highland Way in Scotland.
Roxy at hockey practice.
My gender transition was a tumultuous time for me and those around me. It was unreasonably expensive in terms of money and time. It led to much stress and anxiety. I lost friends. Some members of my family had great difficulty in accepting my transition, which has resulted in estrangement. I am hoping over time these rifts will be repaired.
Roxy (back row, fourth from left) and her hockey team.
Joining my hockey club and playing as a woman very likely saved my life. I belong somewhere, finally. That the so-called Save Women’s Sport bill was crafted to take away from me the contentment and joy that took me nearly a lifetime to find is devastating. Utterly devastating. Please make it go away.
The Save Women’s Sports bill is a private member’s bill introduced to the Senate by Liberal Senator Claire Chandler seeking to exclude transgender women from participating in women’s sports. It has not received official government backing.
