Staff from Hull Museums visited SHOUT at the Warren, a social group for young LGBTQ+ people in Hull to talk about the Lionesses of Hull exhibition and Carol Thomas’ story during Rainbow Laces month.

You can find out more about Rainbow Laces here: Rainbow Laces | Stonewall

Women’s sport can be a really inclusive environment for members of LGBTQ+ communities, but there are sometimes challenges too, so we were keen to hear the experiences of young people in our area.

Jack wrote a beautiful piece for us about his experiences of growing up playing sports in this area.

Jack Littlefair (he/they)
Aged 21

I started dancing at the age of 5. Me and a couple of friends went along to a dance class at the village hall where I lived with my family. I would mainly do contemporary and jazz and started working my way through the grades. I enjoyed that it was an individual thing but also being part of a community when we did performances on stage. My parents still have videos of the Summer Showcases now and they get pulled out of the drawer every so often and played on the DVD player. I became dysphoric with dance when I was about 14 as it became very gendered. I’m a trans person (although not out at the time), and I felt uncomfortable with the gender performance side of things.

From the age of 14 I started playing softball at school. I asked my teacher Mr Phillips if I could join the boys PE class and he said yes which was pretty cool. He said I could play softball as it wasn’t a contact sport. My school team played competitively, and we won the Inter School tournament. I remember people making fun of me because I was moving school in sixth form to one of the losing teams we had beaten that year. Playing softball felt like playing a ‘proper sport’ and I felt included by the rest of the team. It was good because I had already made friends with a lot of them through school.

By the time sixth form came along COVID 19 was here and I was unable to play any more softball. I missed sports a lot at this time. I have always done some sort of sport so it felt strange not to do anything.

In 2021 I started at Hull University and started playing American Football. This was the sport I had always wanted to play but never had the chance as there wasn’t a youth team near where I lived. I went to the society and said I really wanted to play. I had just come out as trans at the time so I went to speak to the president and the welfare secretary who were really great about it. In fact, all of the team were. I remember the offensive coordinator was such a nice guy, I would go to him if I ever had a problem and he always tried to understand.  I jumped straight into training and playing, and I became a starter in my first year. I was actually pretty good.  No one ever misgendered me and I was free to use the locker room with the other guys, looking back I can’t believe I had the confidence to do that at that time.

I remember our first ever game was Edinburgh away, we had lost by a horrendous margin (0-45)!!!! and I remember being stood, sweating in the middle of a field and happy crying. It was an amazing feeling!

I was the first out trans person playing for a university American Football team and when I started playing American Football I always wore one rainbow lace and one trans visibility lace, I thought the regular laces were pretty boring and wanted to represent my community.

I’m no longer at the university but when I return I definitely want to play again whether for the same team or a new one.

I will play sports for as long as my knees will let me (which I hope will be a long time).