‘No soy una más’: a transwoman’s quest for acceptance, safety and belonging in football

Abstract

Transgender inclusion in sport has become a complex and widely debated issue in recent years. Academic scholarship has explored the issue from a range of perspectives, yet little is known about trans athletes’ experiences of elite sport. This paper addresses this omission by centralising the story of Alba Palacios, the first transgender woman officially registered to play in the Spanish women’s football league. Data were generated via an in-depth individual semi-structured interview with Alba and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. A storytelling approach was then adopted, using creative non-fiction vignettes to illuminate key moments of Alba’s embodied experiences at the intersections of gender, sport and her transition. The vignettes reveal three key areas that influenced her journey toward acceptance in women’s sport: institutional and structural barriers; social dynamics in football spaces; and the personal emotional struggles of playing football as a trans woman. The paper concludes by emphasising the disadvantages faced by trans athletes as a means of reframing the pervasive ‘trans women as a threat’ rhetoric that often shapes debates on trans inclusion.

The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Sport Education and Society, 2026 · DOI ↗