They zip around the ice wearing helmets, pads, and mouthguards. They push, bump, and occasionally collide as they compete for space on the wooden floor.
But for the women of the Long Island Roller Rebels, the most important struggle is taking place outside the suburban strip mall roller rink where they are preparing for the roller derby season.
The nearly 20-year-old amateur league is suing a county leader over an executive order that prohibits women’s and girl’s leagues, as well as teams with transgender players, from utilizing county-owned parks and fields. The league’s legal action, supported by the New York Civil Liberties Union, has catapulted it into the national debate over transgender players’ rights.
Amanda Urena, the league’s vice president, stated that there was never any doubt the organization would take a stand.
“The whole point of derby has been to be this thing where people feel welcome,” said the 32-year-old Long Island native, who competes as “Curly Fry” and identifies as LGBTQ, during a recent practice at United Skates of America in Seaford. “We want trans women to know that we want you to come to play with us, and we’ll do our very best to keep fighting and making sure that this is a safe space for you to play.”
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman’s February directive affects over 100 public institutions in the almost 1.4 million-person county immediately east of Queens.
Sports leagues and teams requesting permission to play or train in county-run parks must disclose if they have or allow transgender women or girls. Any organization that enables them to play will be refused a permit, although men’s leagues and teams remain unaffected.
Bills prohibiting transgender youths’ right to engage in sports have been passed in 24 states, as part of a recent wave of anti-trans legislation on a variety of issues. The largest school district in Manhattan is among those considering a ban, following a school board vote last week.
The Roller Rebels applied for a county permit this month in the hopes of staging practices and games at county-owned rinks in the 2019 season, as they have in previous years. However, they expect to be turned down because the club is open to anyone who identifies as a woman and already has one transgender athlete on its roster.
The suspension would also make it difficult for the league, which has two clubs and approximately 25 players, to recruit and will limit its ability to arrange competitions with other leagues, according to Urena.
State Attorney General Letitia James has demanded that the county repeal the prohibition, claiming it violates state anti-discrimination rules, while Blakeman has asked a federal judge to uphold it.
It’s hardly surprising that a roller derby league has become the target of opposition: the sport has long been a haven for queer and transgender women, according to Margot Atwell, who played in a women’s league in New York City and penned “Derby Life,” a roller derby book.
The sport, which dates back at least to the 1930s and peaked in the 1970s, consists of two teams racing around a track as their designated “jammer” tries to gain points by lapping the other skaters, who can utilize their hips, chests, and shoulders to slow them down.
The most recent renaissance began in the early 2000s and has been perpetuated by LGBTQ+ individuals, with leagues typically participating in Pride parades and hosting charity matches, according to Atwell.
“You walk in here and say, ‘I’m a transgender lady. I am a nonbinary person. I am genderqueer. OK? “We accept you,” said Caitlin Carroll, a Roller Rebel who competes as “Catastrophic Danger.” “The world is scary enough. “You should have a safe place to stay.”
Blakeman has stated that he wants to ensure female athletes can participate safely and equally. He spoke at a news conference last week alongside Caitlyn Jenner, who won Olympic gold in the men’s decathlon in 1976 before transitioning to a different gender. Jenner, a Republican who is usually at odds with the transgender community, has supported the ban.
Blakeman, a Republican elected in 2021, has stated that residents have begged his office to take action. However, many detractors reject the ban as political posturing, noting that he has admitted there have been no local complaints against transgender players on women’s teams.
“This is a solution in search of a problem,” said Emily Santosus, a 48-year-old transgender woman from Long Island who wants to join a women’s softball team. “We are not bullies.” We’re the ones being bullied.”
Children still navigating their gender identities, not great athletes, will suffer the most, according to Grace McKenzie, a transgender woman who plays for the New York Rugby Club’s women’s squad.
“Cruel is the only word I can use to describe it,” the 30-year-old Brooklyn resident explained. “Kids are using sports at that age to build relationships, make friendships, develop teamwork skills, leadership skills, and, frankly, just help shield them from all the hate they face as transgender kids already.”
In the greater debate over transgender women in athletics, both sides cite minimal research to support their positions. And restrictions frequently fail to distinguish between girls and women who used puberty blockers as part of their transition, slowing the development of a male-typical physique, and those who did not, as one New York supporter pointed out.
According to Juli Grey-Owens, chairwoman of Gender Equality New York, the Nassau County decree puts some younger trans girls at risk by potentially pitting them against guys.
“They are not hitting puberty, so they’re not growing, they’re not getting that body strength, the endurance, the agility, the big feet, the large legs,” she said.
According to Shane Diamond, a transgender man who plays recreational LGBTQ+ ice hockey in New York City, the prohibition may even result in cisgender female players who are big and muscular being fraudulently branded as transgender and disqualified, as has happened elsewhere.
“It creates a system where any young woman who doesn’t fit the stereotypical idea of femininity and womanhood is at risk of having her gender questioned or gender policed,” Diamond went on to say.
According to a 2022 Washington Post-University of Maryland poll, 55% of Americans oppose permitting transgender women and girls to participate with other women and girls in high school sports, while 58% oppose it in college and professional sports.
After hearing Jenner speak, two cisgender female athletes stated that men are stronger than women and that allowing transgender women and girls to compete would never be fair.
“There is a chance I would get hurt in those situations,” said Trinity Reed, 21, a lacrosse player at Hofstra University in Nassau County.
Mia Babino, 18, is a field hockey player at the State University of New York at Cortland who hopes to transfer to Molloy University in Nassau County.
“We’ve worked very hard to get to where we are and to play at a college level,” she added.
But that mindset contradicts everything athletic competition stands for, and it undervalues women and their potential, contended Urena of the Roller Rebels.
“If people gave up playing sports because they thought they were going to lose, we wouldn’t have a sports industry,” that’s what they claimed. “I love playing against people that are faster and stronger because that’s how I get better.”
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