Thread by @TWkLGBTQ

So I'm going to finish the russian thread tomorrow, but I'm going to tell everyone here a story about me struggling this year - because what's more appropriate for a 22 year old than to air her feelings to almost 4000 strangers

I have been playing rugby in some form since I was 14/15 (I forget what term we started in). Before rugby I was always into individual sports - I swam butterfly and the IM for a swim team, I also did ballet from 5-18. Rugby was the first ever sport I was a natural in

I'm only 17 here! This was my first game back as captain after RUINING my face during a game in November 2012. Rugby was a sport in which I felt strong, powerful, I excelled in it. Of course compared to now I look like a skinny little girl who doesn't really know what she's doing

I wasn't a star, but I scored tries and I stopped my squad from losing EVERY game that season. So naturally when I arrived at university I joined the rugby team. In a team with so many queer women, I finally felt like I belonged. I beefed up and became a regular fixture

I ran for captain and lost, but in 2017 I thought I could make it through a season as VC just fine. But then on October 15th something awful happened

After 2 weeks of coughing up blood and having rigours, my friend forced me to go to A&E. After a LONG time I was diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism and put on blood thinners. It would have killed me had I insisted on heading to training that evening.

Pulmonary embolisms are deadly. It's the same thing that causes a stroke, but in your lungs. Warfarin was not much better - my hair fell out, I couldn't brush my teeth too hard, and I bruised like a peach. This was my bruising after 1v1 on a scrum machine

However, I am an idiot and couldn't be kept away. I turned up to training, went on tour, even went to a game (where my girlfriend badly broke her ankle and tried to kiss me in an x-ray corridor before we were a thing!!). It seemed nothing could stop me in my pursuit of the game

After all, I've had severe facial and neck injuries whilst playing and I'm still here. But then bad things happened; a girl on my squad kicked me in the face so hard my eye socket broke. I began withdrawing from daily life, I didn't go to uni or training

when I was kicked I was still on warfarin - I could have had a brain bleed and died right there at training. The longer I was harassed and not selected and ignored, the deeper my depression became. I was eventually diagnosed with severe PTSD following the embolism & other events

I would have emotional breakdowns after every team announcement - I just wanted to play - and nobody challenged the person harassing me. I was forced off the team entirely and only ever grudgingly did my admin work as VC when I was forced to. I hated everything about rugby

Then, after the end of the season there was some good news. I had been awarded honourary life membership to my students' union for services to sports and the union. I was given the highest possible sporting honours and nominated as sports personality of the year

However, the abuse mounted. Both in messages and on an "anonymous" facebook forum I was repeatedly targeted for the honours. I was called useless, unworthy, undeserving. One post went so far as to implicate my family in the Srebrenica massacre - on the massacre's anniversary

Whilst this happened, I lost touch with nearly every member of the club. People wont speak to me because I was vocal about being abused. I had become a social pariah purely for not letting someone get away with posting homophobic and racist things & physically assaulting me

I think on some level, my queerness made me an easy target. I was loud and mouthy about the ways the club failed queer women in the past and wouldn't accept a culture of bullying. It made me an inconvenience and an embarrassment. I vowed to never play the sport again.

This was tough, I had gone from international trials and championship level clubs to nothing. All the whilst my abuser was climbing the ranks and having her ego stroked for making it to the same level I was at before her abuse. It made me hate myself, feel like I shouldn't exist

Someone had even contacted a side I played for to tell them about my embolism which got me struck off the team due to health concerns. It seemed there was no way back into the sport, nothing I could do, nowhere to turn. I had resigned myself to retiring aged 22, a failed player.

But a small part of me wanted to play. After all, I'd been coached by an England world cup winner, played alongside women with 100+ caps. There was no way I'd be stopped from achieving my dream because an abusive POS told me I couldn't do it.

So I emailed a very high level team

They emailed me back.

They told me they believed me.

They told me that something like that would never be tolerated in their club. That they were sorry it ever happened. That it's amazing I even managed to make it through.

They invited me to train with them this week.

I don't think I've ever cried at an email before. Let alone one as mundane sounding as this. There isn't a lot more valuable than telling someone who's been abused or mistreated that YOU BELIEVE THEM. That they're worth listening to. Or that maybe, you'd like them on the pitch.

Women’s rugby was built on the backs of queer women. Of women deemed too “masculine” or too divergent from the female norms of the 1980s and 1990s. It has a long and proud tradition of accepting members of the LGBTQ+ community, regardless of what TERFs might try to say

I’m probably never going to represent my country - my shot at that sailed after this year. I might never make it to a premiership final. That’s okay, I’ll live.

But I like to think in some small way, my dogged refusal to give up is carrying on the spirit of the women who went before me.

Queer players. Disabled players (I have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome). Players who’ve been abused and shunned and don’t feel like they deserve to play.

I’ve had a shite year, if I’m honest. But it’s taught me to never settle for less, never put up and shut up. You’re worth a lot more than people say you are and nobody owes it to you to be your cheerleader.

Be your own fucking cheerleader! Who deserves it, if not you?

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