They zip around the rink, armed with helmets, pads and mouthguards. They push, bump and occasionally crash out as they jostle for position on the hardwood floor.
But for the women of the Long Island Roller Rebels, their biggest battle is taking place outside the suburban strip-mall roller rink where they’re girding for the upcoming roller derby season.
The nearly 20-year-old amateur league is suing a county leader over an executive order meant to prevent women’s and girl’s leagues and teams with transgender players from using county-run parks and fields. The league’s legal effort, backed by the New York Civil Liberties Union, has thrust it into the national discussion over the rights of transgender athletes.
Amanda Urena, the league’s vice president, said there was never any question the group 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 queer, at a recent practice at United Skates of America in Seaford. “We want trans women to know that we want you to come 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.”
Sent the old white dude an angry email. It is nice when the website lets you do that easily
https://www.nassaucountyny.gov/481/County-Executive
Guy looks like the offspring of Kris Kobach and Mike Pence.
I work in government.
Zero of our elected officials use their official email addresses. I have to call their personal phones to find out if they’re going to make a meeting.
Noted and thanks. I will use the fax number on the site.
I mean yeah, they need all the people they can get
Roller derby is HUGE in the queer community, particularly queer women. My guess is, if you have this take, you’re not really involved in LGBT culture.
Roller derby began its modern revival in Austin, Texas in the early 2000s as an all-female, woman-organized amateur sport.[50] By August 2006, there were over 135 similar leagues.[51] Leagues outside the U.S. also began forming in 2006, and international competition soon followed. There are over 2,000 amateur leagues worldwide[52] in countries including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, France,[53] Brazil, Germany, Belgium, Finland, Norway,[54] Sweden,[55] Denmark,[56] Israel,[57] Singapore,[58][59][60] UAE,[61][62] Egypt,[63][64][65] Thailand,[66] and China.[67] In many international leagues, gear and equipment must be imported.[68] Roller derby’s contemporary resurgence has been regarded as an aspect of globalization which demonstrates “the speed with which pop culture is now transported by highly mobile expatriates and social media, while also highlighting the changing role of women in many societies”.[2]
Many roller derby leagues are amateur, self-organized and all-female[69] and were formed in a do-it-yourself spirit by relatively new enthusiasts.[70] In many leagues (especially in the U.S.), a punk[71][72] aesthetic and/or third-wave feminist[73] ethic is prominent.[74] Members of fledgling leagues often practice and strategize together, regardless of team affiliation, between bouts.[75] Most compete on flat tracks, though several leagues skate on banked tracks, with more in the planning stages.[76]
Each league typically features local teams in public bouts that are popular with a diverse fan base.[77] Some venues host audiences ranging up to 7,000.[78] Successful local leagues have formed traveling teams comprising the league’s best players to compete with comparable teams from other cities and regions. In February 2012, the International Olympic Committee considered roller derby, amongst eight other sports, for inclusion in the 2020 Olympic Games.[79][80]
In 2009, the feature film Whip It featured roller derby and introduced a wider audience to the sport. The WFTDA encouraged leagues to coordinate with promotions during the film’s release to increase awareness of the leagues.[81] Furthermore, corporate advertising has used roller derby themes in television commercials for insurance,[82] a breakfast cereal,[83] and an over-the-counter analgesic.[84]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roller_derby#Contemporary_roller_derby
Doesn’t sound like they do.
Do they? Roller derby is crazy popular in my area. They even have roller derby camps for kids.
I would hope all sports there would make that stand but I knew 110% roller derby would.
I’m not into sports, but I’ve known several women who have done roller derby and they are all very cool people.
Which is interesting for a kind of violent sport.
The woven I know who have done roller derby and rugby tend to all be chill af.
I mean it can be a pretty good form of anger release.
I could see that. People who box feel that way too.
Catharsis is a hell of a drug.
I disagree with excluding trans individuals from sports, but I can understand that there might be some leagues that disagree with me. So if a league or a private group wants to start discriminating based on some horseshit arguments about competitive advantage, I would simply boycot that league and move on with my day. I can’t control what private groups want to do, and I can’t force them to change eligibility requirements.
This isn’t that.
an executive order meant to prevent women’s and girl’s leagues and teams with transgender players from using county-run parks and fields.
What the fuck is this? There isn’t even a horseshit argument about competitive advantage here. Are they saying that trans women are going to have so much testosterone that they tear up the fields? It’s just bigotry, and it’s government sponsored bigotry. We can do something about that.
So if a league or a private group wants to start discriminating based on some horseshit arguments about competitive advantage, I would simply boycot that league and move on with my day.
I would agree to an extent. I don’t know if I would be okay with a ‘whites only’ league existing.
Boycot in this context can vary from not buying the product (tickets) to pipebombs in an office building
Pipe bombs are absolutely not the same thing as a boycott.
There should be some kind of way to add a “joke” -tag in a message
That would require making a joke first. I don’t see how saying you’ll bomb a government office is a joke.
I wouldn’t be OK with it, but I wouldn’t have much to do about it. If it were government sponsored, I’d have a lot of things I’d be doing about it.
So you’re okay with systemic racial discrimination, so long as it’s not the government?
I wouldn’t be OK with it
Insightful comment, totally agree. Gotta say the imagery of being so jacked on testosterone that you destroy infrastructure gave me a chuckle.
This is where all the vitriol over trans women in sports leads. Roller derby is such a hugely queer sport, I’m so proud of them for taking a stand to defend their teammates.
I can’t control what private groups want to do, and I can’t force them to change eligibility requirements.
Yes you can. We have many laws protecting groups from discrimination. That’s why you can’t legally discriminate against people by race/ethnicity, sex/gender, or disability.
It sounds to me like you don’t respect the idea of LGBTQ+ people being part of a protected class.
It sounds to me like you don’t respect the idea of LGBTQ+ people being part of a protected class.
It sounds to me like you’re going out of your way to selectively interpret what I said to create an argument.
I am not empowered to enforce the law, and I have no legal standing to sue for discrimination. I also can’t stop thieves or murderers, but that doesn’t mean I condone those crimes, either.
Sorry, I assumed you lived in a democratic country and were stating that there was no way anyone could ever be obligated not to discriminate. Assuming you live somewhere where you have zero ability to influence change, your original post makes more sense, and doesn’t read like a tacit endorsement of the current status quo against trans people.
I accept your apology, and all is forgiven.
Just a reminder that there’s literally no reason to segregate sports by sex/gender when you can just create different classes like they do in some forms of wrestling.
The current state of competitive sports is hideously sexist.
I agree completely. As a side-effect, you could wind up with men not built like refrigerators playing football alongside some women. To me, that just sounds civilized.
The trick is that weight classes by themselves are not enough. Pound-for-pound, men and women are generally different strength-wise. So there’s still some kind of gendered grading curve involved here. But I think that’s actually doable with the right science backing it up.
Also a reminder that many sports segregated by sex/gender were because the men got upset at being bested by women and changed the rules to protect their egos.
Sorry to doubt you, but do you have a source for this? I can only find paywalled articles and the Wikipedia article doesn’t have anything to back this up
That’s the main reason chess is segregated by gender, though I don’t know if you’d call chess a sport.
The open division isn’t separated, and there are not many women at the very top. Maybe none in the top hundred or more. That of course isn’t because of gender but more maybe due to under-representation. Nevertheless, the women’s division doesn’t exist because it outperforms the open division.
I’ve heard that the reason chess (I’d call it a sport, yes) is segregated is the same reason why some e-sports are segregated, to try and promote the growth of the game among women.
Here’s an example of this happening from about a month ago.
https://www.comicsands.com/kentucky-girls-basketball-championship-ban-2667435991.html?
Tl;Dr: Girls basketball team plays in the boys league, makes it to the championship, and then they get disqualified because they don’t want the boys to risk losing to girls.
And, as someone else has already mentioned, chess is gender segregated because men didn’t want to compete against women in a game they actually have a fair chance at beating men at.
Also I’m fairly sure in chess that there’s open and women’s leagues. I can’t find anything mentioning a men’s only league. I thought the women’s league was mostly around to try to encourage women into a male dominated sport?
The above post makes it sound historical, and the only/main reason for women’s leagues. I have no doubt in my mind there are select modern examples of salty boys being beaten by women’s teams, but that’s different from the origin of women’s leagues being that men were salty about being beaten all the time
can just create different classes like they do in some forms of wrestling.
Wrestling is divided into classes in addition to being segregated by sex and not in place of segregation by sex/gender
Yeah, just ignore the part where I said “some forms of”.
My bad. My brain just skipped over it somehow.
thank you for this great idea. i’m saving it into my brain rn
