LezVolley Tournament Apologizes for Excluding a Trans Man

Fire Island’s “most popular annual LGBTQ+ and nonbinary event for women,” LezVolley, was canceled this last weekend as organizers refused to let a trans man compete. 

The tournament was supposed to take place on Saturday, August 10 but was canceled after a team refused to play as they complained that the other team had a “male-identifying individual.” In a statement issued to Fire Island & Great South Bay News on Sunday, August 11, LezVolley said they asked the player to leave the court “to be respectful to the other teams,” prompting backlash from some of the crowd. The organizers wrote that this part of the crowd “became passionate, then angry, then aggressive—even violent toward us organizers. They occupied the courts, preventing the rest of the teams from playing, and refused to leave until we agreed to let their male player play.” 

Rather than letting the trans man play, they instead canceled the entire event, claiming that they had “to stay true to what we built: a sporting event for the women community.” The event has been marketed to and advertised for lesbians from the beginning, and transmasculine people have always been a part of the lesbian community. They also stated that the “anger and aggressiveness” they faced were the largest reasons they had to cancel the event. 

The comments on LezVolley’s recent Instagram post argue this reason, with several users writing that the reaction was not violent and that it was the reaction of the organizers that was actually aggressive and escalating the situation. Instagram user jen_tylu wrote that the organizers “created the aggression when community members calmly approached them. Screaming, cursing and getting in peoples physical space. The protest was peaceful.” 

User chetifuroo corroborated this comment, writing “The organizers themselves became aggressive, yelling directly in the face of people (including me several times) and shoving their phones into people faces. There was no dialogue possible.”

In the post itself, LezVolley apologized and said that they were planning a Town Hall to clarify who would be allowed to compete. Many users pointed out that while the event was advertising itself as inclusive, it was instead exclusive in its treatment of the transmasculine player. Both trans men and people with transmasculine partners gathered in the comments to emphasize their ties to the lesbian community based on queer history. 

Photo courtesy of social media