I want to be absolutely clear that the intent of this article is NOT to malign
the sport of football, which one might infer from the title. To the contrary, I
continue to enjoy watching football to this day and I believe that my prior participation in the game
helped me to build the internal strength and courage to successfully face my
gender identity issues and finally be able to live an authentic life, despite the consequences I endured from playing the game.
I was 12 years old when I stepped onto the field to play real
football with the big boys. I would be entering the 7th grade that
fall, but the rest of the boys who came out for summer practice were mostly 16
and older and no one else was younger than 15. They were for the most part four
to six years older than me. We called summer practice “Captain’s Practice” and
it began the last week of June for four weeks. We were to get into shape to
begin organized practice that began in the last week of July and went on until
school started the first week of September and the season began the first
Saturday in September.
The Junior Varsity team would not form up until the school
started and played their first game in late September. I couldn’t afford to
wait that long to begin playing football because I had something to prove. I
had to prove it to everyone else but more importantly I had to try to prove a
lie to myself about who I really was. In all truth, back then, I secretly
wanted to one of the cheerleaders rather than be a football player, but I knew
that could never be.
Why else would someone who was outweighed by anywhere from
40 to well over 100 pounds subject themselves to full contact football? The
other question that came much later in life, was what kind of judgment were the
adults who ran this particular program exercising to allow someone so much
younger and so much smaller to engage at this level of competition with the
high probability of injuries which were inevitable in this situation?
However, ultimately, the person who decided to do this was
me. The more important question is why would I engage in such a foolish and
dangerous activity? That is a question that can only to be answered by me.
Simply put, it was because I had something to try to convince myself of that
was not true. It was something that was not true to convince everyone else who had
no idea what it was I was trying to prove, because I was unwilling to face my
own truth.
As I’ve written about earlier, I knew I was not a boy and
was really a girl, no matter what my biological reality was when I had the
language to identify it. That was around age 6. I also knew the word for people
like me at that time, but this, the summer of my twelfth year, was also the
summer that I began to read the professional books about transsexuals and learn
more specific information about myself. What I read terrified me because I was reading about my
truth and my reality. These learned professionals were describing me in detail
and they had no way of knowing me. Yet they were writing about me in such
accurate detail that it was truly terrifying. I in no way wanted to be one of those people
who I was reading about. Yet I could not keep from going back over and over again to
read everything there was about people like me. I had to know the truth even if
I was a long way from being able to accept that truth and was very desperate to
prove to myself and to those that I imagined could see who I truly was, that I
was not like those people I read about.
Really, it was far easier to go out every day and endure the
extreme physical punishment I experienced every time I played with the others
than to face up to and accept the reality of who I was. The older boys seemed
to relish every opportunity to hit me as hard as they could since they couldn’t
deliver the same degree of physical punishment to boys their own age and size.
The coaches seemed to also relish matching me up against the oldest and biggest
team members as well. After all, isn’t that what someone like me deserved for
being such an abomination? Perhaps I was hoping they would literally beat the
transsexualism out of me. Looking back, I realize what a sad mindset that was
for a young child.
It’s really no surprise that the first year playing with
them that I broke my nose, had a very painful tailbone injury and in hindsight
I recognize that I suffered at least three concussions of one degree or
another. Eventually, I had to have cervical spinal surgery due to injuries sustained from helmet to helmet hits which were legal at the time. These are particularly dangerous on kickoffs and kickoff returns.
A culture of hazing existed as well, fostered by tradition
and encouraged by the adults who ran our program. Instead of garnering respect
for what I did, something that I had desperately hoped for, something that no
one my age did until we were all 15 and then only two other classmates (in my
third year of playing), participated in, I was the subject of physical,
emotional and eventually on one isolated occasion the victim of sexual abuse.
Because of the emotional abuse and that one incident of sexual abuse I became
convinced that they knew my secret, but in hindsight, I know this not to be
true. They were simply abusive and probably were acting out many things that
had been perpetrated upon them coming up through the same system. The
difference between me and them were that some of them were gifted athletes and
I was not. They did not , however, to my present degree of knowledge, harbor a secret that caused them tremendous guilt and
shame. I did.
What I was able to accomplish was accomplished through my sheer
willpower and determination. I was the only one in my class to play football 6
seasons at my school. I was the only one to earn 4 varsity letters in football
and three Junior Varsity letters. I was the only one to start offense and
defense during my Sophomore, Junior and Senior seasons and I set two school
records at the time in my Senior year for fumble recoveries in a game and in a
season. Not being a skill player, I accomplished these things as an undersized
offensive and defensive lineman. I accomplished this through having learned to
take heavy physical punishment and doling out my own when the opportunity
presented itself. I earned my accomplishments through willpower and desire, not through any athletic talent because I am not talented athletically.
Over the years between that first year and my last season, I
had probably suffered 4 or 5 more concussions. Nobody paid attention to that
back then and hitting each other helmet to helmet was expected. I injured a
shoulder, a knee, broke a finger, and one year experienced such severe staph
infections all over my body that they nearly resulted in my hospitalization
because I hid the extent of them until the season ended and I missed the next
two weeks of school because I was too sick to attend after the season was over. Years later I required surgery to fuse my cervical spine as a consequence of way too many helmet to helmet hits, particularly on kickoffs and kickoff returns. That sort of dangerous contact was legal back then.
Really, it was far easier to go out every day and endure the
extreme physical punishment I experienced every time I played with the others
than to face up to and accept the reality of who I was. The older boys seemed
to relish every opportunity to hit me as hard as they could since they couldn’t
deliver the same degree of physical punishment to boys their own age and size.
The coaches seemed to also relish matching me up against the oldest and biggest
team members as well. After all, isn’t that what someone like me deserved for
being such an abomination? Perhaps I was hoping they would literally beat the
transsexualism out of me. Looking back, I realize what a sad mindset that was
for a young child.
It’s really no surprise that the first year playing with
them that I broke my nose, had a very painful tailbone injury and in hindsight
I recognize that I suffered at least three concussions of one degree or
another.
A culture of hazing existed as well, fostered by tradition
and encouraged by the adults who ran our program. Instead of garnering respect
for what I did, something that I had desperately hoped for, something that no
one my age did until we were all 15 and then only two other classmates (in my
third year of playing), participated in, I was the subject of physical,
emotional and eventually on one isolated occasion the victim of sexual abuse.
Because of the emotional abuse and that one incident of sexual abuse I became
convinced that they knew my secret, but in hindsight, I know this not to be
true. They were simply abusive and probably were acting out many things that
had been perpetrated upon them coming up through the same system. The
difference between me and them were that some of them were gifted athletes and
I was not. They did not harbor a secret that caused them tremendous guilt and
shame. I did.
What I was able to accomplish was accomplished through my sheer
willpower and determination. I was the only one in my class to play football 6
seasons at my school. I was the only one to earn 4 varsity letters in football
and three Junior Varsity letters. I was the only one to start offense and
defense during my Sophomore, Junior and Senior seasons and I set two school
records at the time in my Senior year for fumble recoveries in a game and in a
season. Not being a skill player, I accomplished these things as an undersized
offensive and defensive lineman. I accomplished this through having learned to
take heavy physical punishment and doling out my own when the opportunity
presented itself.
Over the years between that first year and my last season, I
had probably suffered 4 or 5 more concussions. Nobody paid attention to that
back then and hitting each other helmet to helmet was expected. I injured a
shoulder, a knee, broke a finger, and one year experienced such severe staph
infections all over my body that they nearly resulted in my hospitalization
because I hid the extent of them until the season ended and I missed the next
two weeks of school because I was too sick to attend after the season was over.
Over these six years, I continued to read every
professional book that came out on transsexualism. By the time I was in my last
season of playing I had lost the enthusiasm for trying to hide by playing
football. I didn’t show up for summer practice, preferring to work at my job at
the hospital as a nursing aide. I questioned why I bothered playing at all at
that point. I simply didn’t care. It was clear to me that I was not like the
others
either at the most fundamental level. Football is a game for
men and I was never a man. I was a woman. I just couldn’t accept that fact at
that time, though I knew it to be true. The only reason I continued to play was
to finish what I started. I knew I didn’t have the talent or physical size to
play at the collegiate level, though I tried to convince myself otherwise and
spoke with several Division III coaches of schools I was considering attending.
None of them encouraged me.
Looking back, I am glad that I had the experience of playing
football and enduring what I did. I learned to take beating after beating.
Sometimes I wonder how I got back up each time after each one, but I know that learning
to endure and survive that experience year after year gave me the internal
strength and fortitude to be able to finally come to terms with myself and go
through a gender transition. Not many people who grew up in the times that I
did have been able to do that. Gender transition is probably one of the hardest
human experiences one can undergo. Many of the things I learned about myself
back then and the willingness to endure what I willingly endured gave me the
strength to do what I had to do to live my life authentically. The tolerance to
pain, both physical and emotional in nature gave me the courage and emotional
resiliency to undergo my gender transition. I paid it forward. It was worth the
price.
on my team. I could never be. It wasn’t my fault, and it wasn’t really
their fault
either at the most fundamental level. Football is a game for
men and I was never a man. I was a woman. I just couldn’t accept that fact at
that time, though I knew it to be true. The only reason I continued to play was
to finish what I started. I knew I didn’t have the talent or physical size to
play at the collegiate level, though I tried to convince myself otherwise and
spoke with several Division III coaches of schools I was considering attending.
None of them encouraged me. This time I decided to listen.
Looking back, I am glad that I had the experience of playing
football and enduring what I did. I learned to take beating after beating.
Sometimes I wonder how I got back up each time after each one, but I know that learning
to endure and survive that experience year after year gave me the internal
strength and fortitude to be able to finally come to terms with myself and go
through a gender transition. Not many people who grew up in the times that I
did have been able to do that. Gender transition is probably one of the hardest
human experiences one can undergo. Many of the things I learned about myself
back then and the willingness to endure what I willingly endured gave me the
strength to do what I had to do to live my life authentically. The tolerance to
pain, both physical and emotional in nature gave me the courage and emotional
resiliency to undergo my gender transition. I paid it forward. It was worth the
price.
for the family of Dashad "Sage" Smith, a transgender female who disappeared back in 2012.
