I played for a couple years (2010-2012) and unlike you I was never very good at it but it still changed my life. The first trans people I knew in 3D I met at roller derby practice. I went to my first fresh meat tryout (new league, nobody turned away) apologizing for being fat and pathetic and the response I got (“are you kidding? I can’t wait to see you kick ass!”) was the beginning of my transformation into somebody unattached to the binary and who actually likes themselves.
This is absolutely the thing about derby... There is a place for every body type and shape. Wiry, whippet-thin jammers sliding through packs, absolute units as blockers occupying so much track with glorious butts... For real... the "delicate wall flower" aesthetic is the LEAST valuable body type for derby. Truly it is magnificent to behold the moment when a person realises that the things that they have heard their whole life about why they are not suitable for sport realising that it puts them WAY ahead of others... it's magic.
For reals, i get rinsed by the big booty players... 90kgs of muscle and just shy of six foot... i BOUNCE off players like you who don't even notice me.
PEAK ATHLETICISM
but yes... the thing behind it all... the acknowledgement that you are you... you have value regardless of how you look, how you present into the world. x
I was raised in a misogynistic religious tradition, too, so I was pretty much fucked coming and going- not pretty enough to make good wife material but had boobs so that was enough to be a “temptation” to men and worthy of self hatred.. derby was the beginning of my deconstruction. So grateful for the derby community. First people to show me I didn’t have to perform femininity for anyone, myself included.
I played for a couple years (2010-2012) and unlike you I was never very good at it but it still changed my life. The first trans people I knew in 3D I met at roller derby practice. I went to my first fresh meat tryout (new league, nobody turned away) apologizing for being fat and pathetic and the response I got (“are you kidding? I can’t wait to see you kick ass!”) was the beginning of my transformation into somebody unattached to the binary and who actually likes themselves.
This is absolutely the thing about derby... There is a place for every body type and shape. Wiry, whippet-thin jammers sliding through packs, absolute units as blockers occupying so much track with glorious butts... For real... the "delicate wall flower" aesthetic is the LEAST valuable body type for derby. Truly it is magnificent to behold the moment when a person realises that the things that they have heard their whole life about why they are not suitable for sport realising that it puts them WAY ahead of others... it's magic.
For reals, i get rinsed by the big booty players... 90kgs of muscle and just shy of six foot... i BOUNCE off players like you who don't even notice me.
PEAK ATHLETICISM
but yes... the thing behind it all... the acknowledgement that you are you... you have value regardless of how you look, how you present into the world. x
I was raised in a misogynistic religious tradition, too, so I was pretty much fucked coming and going- not pretty enough to make good wife material but had boobs so that was enough to be a “temptation” to men and worthy of self hatred.. derby was the beginning of my deconstruction. So grateful for the derby community. First people to show me I didn’t have to perform femininity for anyone, myself included.