At a time when women’s football has overcome many hardships to reach a level and popularity that approaches the match of men’s soccer, transgender women face greater challenges in imposing their presence on the game.
Mara Gomez and Marcos Rojo are seeking to open the door for others to enter the world of football after they achieved the dream of playing for professional clubs.
Mara, 23, plays for the amateur Villa San Carlos team in the south of the capital, Buenos Aires, after overcoming many hardships and stereotypes against transgender women.
“When I started playing football, there was a lot of discrimination, exclusion, bullying and verbal abuse on the streets and at school,” she says.
Mara confirms that she is nine to fulfill her dream of playing for a professional team until she is or is transgender in the professional football league in Argentina.
Transgender women often face accusations of their physical superiority over women, which does not qualify them for professional competition in their ranks, which is denied by its coach, Juan Cruz Vitaly.
He says: “Everyone assumes that it will be stronger than the rest of the players and in fact I have a number of players who are stronger than them.”
As for Marcos Rojo, 20, he plays as a striker with the Union del Suburbio team in the north of the country.
Rojo says his family supports his desire to change his name and gender with his identity card, but he has yet to do so.
According to Rojo, playing soccer is about her mastery and has nothing to do with the genres of her players. “If you know how to play ball, that’s all.”
The president of the Union del Suburbio says that the female divers need to make a double effort to join the professional football world.
Rojo and Mara must present two certificates to test their hormones before joining any team professionally.
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