All-trans football team set to make history #PinkInOurLives #PinkPress

All-trans football team set to make history on the pitch: “You can create your own safe spaces”.

Arthur Webber is set to captan TRUK United FC’s all-trans men team, which is the first time team of solely trans men play in Europe.

Last year on, Trans Day of Visibility, TRUK United FC played a historic game against Dulwich Hamlet Women’s FC with a team comprised entirely of trans women. The 2022 match sparked a conversation around trans inclusion in sport, a trick TRUK is hoping to repeat this year, with the introduction of an all-trans men’s team.

TRUK United FC Men will play their first match on Trans Day of Visibility 2023 (31 March) against supporters of Dulwich Hamlet FC. The TRUK United FC Women team will also play that day, against Dulwich’s women’s team.

Arthur Webber, who will captain the men’s team, has been playing football for as long as he can remember. His mum jokes that his dad ‘made him trans’ by making him watch the 1998 World Cup as a baby.

“I used to play with him in the back garden before I joined a team when I was seven, and I joined the boys’ team at that point because my dad knew the coach and knew that I was going to flatly refuse to play for a girls’ team,” he tells ahead of the match.

“I played for the boys’ team up until I moved to secondary school, and in secondary school everything became sex-segregated, so I played for a women’s team then for a couple of years before finding out what trans was. Then I was like, ‘Oh s**t, I can’t do this anymore’, and I gave up [football] until I moved to London last year.”

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Arthur hopes the match will inspire other trans clubs to open up across the country, maybe even creating a league for trans folk to come together to play football.

“Let’s have a trans-only league,” he says. “You can create your own spaces. I tweeted [about the match] and got so many responses.” He continues: “There will be other trans guys in your area. You can look at the census data and find out exactly how many trans guys are in your area. At least one of them will like football. Don’t let this be the limit of it. Go off. Do your own thing. Create more time, more space to be joyous and have fun.”