Interview by: Jessica McKendrick (she/her) & Lucy Donoghue (she/her)
Photography by: Eva Maria Horn (she/her)
We spoke to Jasmine Angove and Ryleigh Sandrey from Gender Goals FC. Founded in 2023, the club is Scotland’s first football club run by, and exclusively for, trans and non-binary people; creating a space where their players can ‘leave the real world and all of its problems at the gate’ to simply enjoy The Beautiful Game.
As the club grows, expanding its community of over 60 players, they play competitively in various leagues across Glasgow. We came along to soak up the atmosphere and evident sense of camaraderie that unfurled on the pitch during the 7-a-side games the team played in The Thistle League; part of the Glasgow Community Football league.
Would you be able to introduce Gender Goals, and how you got started in Glasgow?
JASMINE: I was working for ‘LEAP Sports’ (Leadership, Equality and Active Participation in Sports for LGBTI people in Scotland). They have this thing called “Transactive”, where they put on different sports sessions – I did 10 football sessions, and coached them myself. I had this captive audience of trans and non-binary people who were playing football and enjoying football, and I thought ‘ah it would be really cool to start a team’. Kind of just doing it because I wanted a team of people to play with you know? I thought it would be fun…and yeah it kind of grew from there.
I had been playing football in the Scottish Women’s Football League system; I believe I was the first trans woman playing SWF affiliated football in Scotland. I experienced a lot of abuse and resistance from journalists, Twitter and opposition teams, as well as having to divulge very personal information about my body to this governing body who had clearly had very little experience with their own official policies. It was really dehumanising actually. So I just wanted to make a place where you could play football without having all these barriers to jump over. It’s just like, a safe space, you can play football without any pressure or requirements really.
Can you tell us a little bit about why fostering community is so important for Gender Goals?
RYLEIGH: I think it’s a very crucial part of it. Being trans is quite an alienating experience if you don’t have a community around you. And yes, we’re all getting together ’cause we enjoy football, but one of the bigger parts of it is the community aspect. It’s a nice thing to, you know, leave the real world and all of its problems at the gate and go in and play some football and have a nice time. Even, like, from very early on even when we were just growing as a team, the community aspect really came out. People were enjoying the football but they were coming back as well for friendships they had developed or the support network or that kind of thing. So I think it just became part and parcel of it, it wasn’t necessarily the intention when it was started, but it’s a very positive thing to have come out of it.
Do you think the football world, and sporting world more generally, is doing enough to challenge gender norms and support trans and non-binary people? What still needs to change?
JASMINE: So football is a gendered game, right? It’s split into men’s football and women’s football, so like, it’s not that it’s not doing enough, it actively supports or reinforces gender norms, you know what I mean? I guess women’s football challenges the idea of what a woman can and should do to an extent. But like, I don’t know if it necessarily challenges gender norms in terms of like, binaries and things. It’s just like, making what being a woman can be slightly more expansive… like especially 10, 15, 20 years ago when that was still really ground-breaking. I mean, men’s football is so fucking toxic, you know? Like, men’s football is the embodiment of the patriarchy. I guess men’s football maybe enforces gender norms and like, women’s football maybe slightly subverts them. When it comes to non-binary people it doesn’t really recognise that very much ever. Like, because at the end of the day, they make it very bio-essentialist right? But I don’t think football challenges gender norms.
RYLEIGH: I think on some community and grassroots levels it does, ’cause obviously there are inclusive football leagues and that kind of thing. But if you’re talking about what the sport that most people watch is like, then that’s not going to change. It’s kind of very set in what it expects from the individuals who take part and that’s reinforced by the fans who watch it and how they react to anything that differs from that. So, I think while community sport can change and can be a powerful tool for these kinds of things, I don’t think we’ll ever see that necessarily in the professional game.
JASMINE: I guess it’s important to remember that like, when I was talking about football, I’m understanding it as the industry of football, which is intertwined with capitalism right? So therefore intertwined with the patriarchy?
All the jokes about women’s football being full of lesbians, that was really true like a few years ago. Now it’s changing, you know? Like, because it’s played in schools more by girls which is great, but it’s less of like a counterculture thing, because it’s becoming mainstream. But as it does become mainstream, like so many things unfortunately, it gets enveloped, or encroached, by capitalism and that brings with it its own problems. Like Ryleigh was saying, grassroots football can still change gender norms.
I would like to add, the reason I think trans and non-binary people are so rejected by the powerful in society, and that includes the football establishment, is because we subvert the patriarchy. That is, the whole idea that we can shift between these rigidly defined ideas of male and female or even something else, it kind of breaks down the idea of a hierarchy between the sexes right? It really illustrates how the idea of men being infallibly superior to women is ridiculous. But that idea is what so much of human society is based on, the free labour of women etc. I don’t know, I think we represent a freedom of being that is scary to powerful people and institutions because they can’t control us easily, because they can’t even categorise us. I basically want to see a feminist revolution.
What advice would you give to other trans and non-binary people who want to get involved in sports, but feel hesitant?
RYLEIGH: So I think the way I got back into sport ’cause I thought I kind of lost it when I transitioned, it was kind of like something that I was, not necessarily willingly giving up, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make so to speak. But being involved in casual community based stuff like a kickabout, really kind of re-opened that door for me. After I came out, and discovered the community in Glasgow, where you can take part in sport and it be fun and, for the love of the game – and then obviously through that kind of thing I met Jasmine, Gender Goals happened. I guess the advice is to seek out what community you want to be a part of, and just have a go to see if it’s for you. Obviously when you transition you’re kind of undoing a lot of that ‘learned stuff’ about gender anyway, and what’s expected of you as an individual, and I think being involved in the community like that, and like Gender Goals, really helps ‘undo that knot’ so to speak.
What’s your favourite part about playing with Gender Goals?
RYLEIGH: It’s so difficult ’cause there’s so much I enjoy about it. I think it is probably as much as I do love football and obsessed with football and spend far too much of my time following football, it’s actually the community for me that’s the best bit. I love football but, generally it is just turning up and playing football with your mates for an hour and it being fun. It’s a really important part of my life now, so I think that’s where the best bit for me.
Where do you see this team in five years? What impact do you hope it has?
JASMINE: That’s a tricky one. I don’t know, I don’t really plan my day you know? I guess it would be nice for it to become sustainable, I think it already is kind of sustainable? It would be nice if we had enough money to put multiple people through coaching courses, yeah. And if we had enough money to hire a bigger training pitch. But I would like to be able to step back and know that it’s gonna be OK.
RYLEIGH: I think that’s the big measure of its success, ’cause obviously Jasmine was the founder, I joined fairly early on. It would be nice to think that if life got in the way, we moved away from it for whatever reason, it would still flourish and continue without us. I think that would be the measure of its success and impact if we have a community that can do that.
JASMINE: I think it might. I think one of the really important things about Gender Goals is that a lot of our players are maybe like, younger, or at least younger in terms of they have only just come out, whatever actual age they are. There’s a lot of anxiety about being trans as well, the world is scary. Obviously you get a lot of people who may be shy, less good at, like, stepping up or feeling confident in making decisions. So if Gender Goals could help people develop those skills, which I am starting to see from some people you know, it’s making people more well-rounded people. I don’t know, I guess it’s teaching them that they are adults and they can make decisions and they are learning that it’s OK to be who they are. I think that would be a success of Gender Goals in five years.
Lastly, do you have any pre-game or post-game rituals?
RYLEIGH: I do individually yeah, well it depends if I’m in goal or not for a start. But generally, I listen to the same playlist every single time before we’re about to play, or get up at the same time usually, that kind of thing. When I was still, like, trying to rebuild my confidence as a player, I would write things on my hand for me to look at during the game.
JASMINE: Generally, as a team I think the pre match ritual is usually being a bit late and disorganised, especially me. We’re sponsored by Glad café, so we go there and have some coffee or a drink or whatever depending on the time of day.
You can support Gender Goals and buy a shirt through their website: Gendergoalsfc.com or you can reach out to join the club @gendergoals on Instagram.
