Fighting Transphobia In Sports One Kick At A Time: India's First All-Trans Football Team Hopes To Break Boundaries

In 2014, the Supreme Court of India allowed transgender people to identify as a third gender and directed the central and state governments to give full legal recognition to them.

But, almost 10 years later, transgenders have still not been fully accepted as a part of society and transphobia is still very real.

Ya.All is a youth network working towards LGBTQIA+ inclusion in Manipur and the North East. In 2020, Sadam Hanjabam, a PhD scholar who established Ya All, set up an all-trans football team.

Facing trauma as a queer individual

In the fifth episode of the Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry-produced and hosted Apple TV+ show The Me You Can¡¯t See, Hanjabam recollects a traumatic incident in his life when cops confronted him as he walked hand-in-hand with his partner on the streets of Manipur. Both were made to kneel down on the ground, hands folded behind. He can vividly remember the fear they felt.

Their fault? Loving another of the same sex.

Sadam Hanjabam/ Twitter

Such instances of societal backlash and moral policing have been faced by queer people in India countless times.

Hanjabam realised that he wanted to create a safe space for others like him, and thus, Ya.all was born (but registered as an NGO only in 2019.) Expanding to "you all" in English, it means revolution in Manipuri.

¡°The idea is to be inclusive. And when you combine the English and Manipuri meanings, it is an inclusive revolution,¡± Hanjabam says on the show.

Common language of sports

In the initial days, Ya.all was taking it slow - they couldn't immediately hold pride marches, fearing a strong reaction from society. Instead, they thought of expressing themselves through the common language of sports. Within a few months, India¡¯s first all-trans football team was set up.

It was during the five-day festival of Yaoshang in 2018, celebrated to mark the onset of spring in Manipur that the idea first came to Hanjabam.

As the games for the festival began, he realised that the locals naturally divided themselves into male and female teams. No one had even bothered to pause and think of the third gender, even though the Supreme Court had recognised a third category in gender through the 2014 NALSA judgement.

The football team launched by Ya.All is thus a counter to the male-female split in sport that doesn't provide space for queer participation.

India's first all-trans men football team in Manipur challenges male-female binary in sport/ Ya.all

"We knew that we needed a proper football team of at least 11 players, and we had been trying to put one together for a long time. However, players were not stepping forward due to social stigma and lack of support. That's why it took this long to form an all-trans team," says Hanjabam, speaking to Firstpost.

Firstpost quotes Nick, the football team captain, "I always thought like a boy." Despite being selected to play at the national level, he had to step away: "I wanted to participate in matches, but I was not able to since I fit in neither of the two categories ¡ª male or female."

Even today, Hanjabam reveals that most players in the team continue to compete in women's categories in other sports because there aren't enough transgender sportspersons to compete with.

Double discrimination

The discrimination they face is not just because of being the 'third gender' but also because they are from the Northeast.

Speaking to Vogue, Chaoba Wahengbam, vice-captain and defender of Ya-All¡¯s trans football team, said, "Often, when we go to play matches outside of Manipur, we hear people whispering among themselves, ¡®Where have these chinkis come from?"

Hailing from the Northeast and having to go to the other Indian states for their higher education, the feeling of alienation came as second nature to them.

The othering of North-east Indians by the mainland Indians because of how they look and dress, or the food they eat, is something that has been constant and refuses to shake off even today - though years of effort has brought in some level of understanding.

As for the members of the Ya-All F.C., joining the team led them to finally find the sense of belonging they had been searching for throughout their lives.

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But the road to equality is long. Hanjabam says, ¡°Homophobia is still rife in Indian sports and my mission is to create a queer affirming environment for people of diverse gender and sexual identities to compete in."

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