There are few things that sound like more fun than drinking and watching girls in shorts glide around a ring, and around, and around, and around…
Well, anyway. Whether you’re into derby, a champion roller derby player, an avid fan, a screaming fangirl, a pissed off activist, or the kid outside the roller derby rink smoking cigarettes, even you can appreciate the recent changes the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association made to its gender policy. It’s more inclusive now – which means more girls going round / round / round!
The WFTDA is an authority on roller derby, and works to educate people on the rules and get more people involved in leagues. In other words, they want to keep roller derby alive and well. And, well, there was this little problem going on where trans women felt excluded by the WFTDA’s gender policies, and the idea that a woman-exclusive sport was only for some women if you get what I mean.
So the WFTDA fixed it head-on, and they adopted a new, progressive gender policy that is inclusive to trans and intersex women. The member leagues voted to adopt a common definition of “female,” one that would relate to the sport. The new policy, which has been in the works since 2008, involved other sports groups, government and other legal counsel, academics, and medical experts in its formation. The final verdict?
Recognizing that there are many definitions of “female,” the policy clearly defines what the term means for the purposes of WFTDA-sanctioned competition. It states that a female is someone “living as a woman and having sex hormones that are within the medically acceptable range for a female,” to include male-to-female transgender and intersex persons.
WHAT! AWESOME! So in order to play in the WFTDA you have to live as a woman. In order to play a woman’s sport you have to live as a woman. This sound great and common sense-y. And to make WFTDA even more approachable, the new policy also does not require the transgender athletes show any documentation of their gender – and, if an issue is raised, that all the paperwork and other things will be handled in a way that is private and relies on a medial expert of her choosing. The WFTDA does not want to make this hard for anyone.
If you want to play roller derby well then, god damn it, get in that rink.
The policy will go into effect January 1, 2012 and applies to skaters on member leagues’ 20-person WFTDA-chartered teams (the teams that compete for WFTDA rankings and tournament eligibility).
And now, pictures of Ellen Page doing roller derby:
