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Transsexual set to play competiitive footiie in Oz
By: Nigel Robinson
Will hopes to play for Bendingo
Will hopes to play for Bendingo
A female to male transsexual is set to become Australias first trans football player
‘I'm just an ordinary guy who wants to play football, just with slightly different circumstances of how I came to be a guy,’ he told The Age.
Will (he prefers not to give his surname), 25, who works as a graphic designer changed his sex two years ago and hopes to play competitively for the Bendigo football league.
He has had a double mastectomy and is taking hormones, but feels that technology is not yet advanced enough to give him a fully functioning penis.
He has already been approved by the Victorian Country Football League, and he has been assured that players will be educated on transsexual and transgender issues to ensure that he will not be subject to abuse on the field.
However, for insurance reasons, he will have to change his gender on his birth certificate.
‘I thought, well, if fat blokes who are in their forties are playing football, surely I can,’ he told The Age. ‘The only thing stopping me is other people's prejudice.
‘There might be a bit of resentment... if I turned out to be better than one or two players.... They'd be thinking, 'God, he doesn't even have a penis and he can kick the ball better than me.’
Will be training before submitting himself for club selection next year.
