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The Rose City Riveters, the supporters group for the Portland Thorns soccer club, joined its counterparts across the National Women’s Soccer League on Friday to launch a campaign with a simple message: “Trans people belong.”
Last weekend, fans across the league displayed banners in support of the movement for the trans and queer community in women’s sports. The Rose City Riveters hung a banner reading, “Trans people belong in sports” alongside a trans flag front and center in their supporters section during Sunday’s match against Racing Louisville. The messaging will continue at venues this weekend, including in tonight’s match against the Orlando Pride.
In its May 2 statement, the coalition—composed of supporters groups for all 14 active NWSL teams and for the Boston Legacy, which is set to join the league next year—declares itself to be “resolute in standing against the weaponization of women’s sports against the trans community.”
“I was really proud of these groups,” says Hannah Mueller, “because this is the biggest scale that we’ve ever pulled anything off collectively.” Mueller, initially a notetaker at meetings for the campaign, is also a member of the Rose City Riveters and is the Riveters’ voting representative on the Independent Supporters Council.
The statement comes as the participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports has become a political hot button, with several states passing bans. The group sees the campaign as a way of centering trans people—whether they be on the pitch, on the sidelines, or in the stands—and their experiences at a time when government and sporting bodies are actively trying to legislate them out of the public eye.
Although discussions about the “Trans People Belong” campaign have been in progress for several months, the announcement comes at a tense moment in the NWSL, which WW considered in this week’s Game of Thorns column. There are no known transgender players in the NWSL right now, though two out trans people have played in the league in the past. But at two NWSL games—including one in Portland—fans have used anti-trans rhetoric against women of African descent. England’s FA banned trans women from women’s soccer, the association announced May 1.
Coincidentally, Riley Gaines—a swimmer who is vocally opposed to trans athletes in women’s sports—is scheduled to speak at Portland State University on Monday, sparking counterprotests, as The Oregonian first reported.
“We can’t just be scared,” Mueller says. “Cis folks can’t just hide away. This involves everyone. That’s something we really wanted to make clear in our statement and clear to the league as well.”
Today’s campaign announcement is a first step: a statement to be accompanied by educational materials and resources for trans people, a way to vocally share support for trans individuals and provide them and their allies with ways to materially support the trans community.
“Trans people belong—always have—everywhere all the time,” Mueller says. “We came to those words because it’s a small sentence you can build upon: Trans people belong in sport. Trans people belong everywhere. Trans people have always belonged, any tense, any time.”