In 2018, I moved by myself from Columbus, Ohio to Portland, Ore., hoping that the moodiness of the trees and mountains might help me discover something about myself. I was working for a nonprofit and biked to work some days. On the first warm day of the year, I noticed a warehouse by the bike path had its doors open. There was an oval-shaped track inside, where a handful of people on roller skates were running into each other.
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I slowed my bike and stopped, putting one foot down to watch them. I figured it was roller derby (I had of course watched Whip It shortly after realizing I was gay), but I’d never seen the real thing. The people in the warehouse were all sizes, all ability levels, and they were hitting each other hard. I signed up.
Roller derby is played in increments called jams that last up to two minutes. Each team fields five skaters per jam: four blockers and one jammer. The jammer (wearing a helmet cover with a star) is the only skater on each team who can score points. When the jam begins, the jammers fight through the pack of blockers, then race each other around the track, earning a point for every opposing blocker they pass with their hips.
I quickly learned that derby is hard. The first thing they teach you is how to fall safely, because it’s not a question of if you’ll fall. I got used to palm-sized bruises on my arms and legs, quads so sore I couldn’t walk down the stairs, and the shooting pain that runs up your entire spine when your tailbone lands directly on someone’s wheel.
I was immediately drawn to jamming. The position is masochistically addicting—the struggle of fighting through the pack over and over and over feels worth it in the one moment you break free.
So, I relished the challenge. I’d never been athletic growing up, but here was a warehouse full of people from all walks of life, all shapes and sizes, of all genders and sexualities, who wanted to put on skates and slam into one another a few times a week. I was not very strong, but I was fast and small, and I learned that derby is one of the only sports where any body type can play and find an advantage. I learned how to dodge larger skaters, how to duck under their hips to avoid a hit, and how to jump over their legs in the turns of the track to score points.
I started making friends. I let my armpit hair grow out and learned my moon and rising signs. I got my septum pierced and started wearing color again. I fell in love, then out of love, then in love again. I felt like I was rapidly changing, but at the same time, rapidly coming home to myself.
I came out as lesbian to my mom fast, over the phone, trying to make it sound nonchalant. When my parents first visited two months later, she cried at brunch, not because I was gay, but because she was worried that she’d said or done something that made me feel like I couldn’t be gay. I pulled up the hood of my hoodie and yanked the strings so tight I couldn’t see her. I knew so many people had parents who reacted way worse when they came out, who kicked them out of the house or refused to use their pronouns. I was lucky to have parents who voted blue and went to Pride. But they were seeing me, really seeing me, for the first time, and I hated the vulnerability.
Roller derby requires you to be vulnerable. You fall a lot, you probably look awkward on skates, and you make stupid mistakes during scrimmages that land you in the penalty box. Since I was small, I spent a lot of time on the ground or pushing fruitlessly, trying desperately to move my teammates but unable to get them to budge. I was frustrated by how hard it was, because I loved it so much. I never thought about quitting, even as it got harder and my personal life got messy (like all queer communities, derby can be incestuous). I started to crave that vulnerability.
Before roller derby, I’d always wished I could just skip coming out. It was too much attention, too many people feeling sorry for me. The person I was coming out to never seemed to know how to react, which made me feel even weirder.
But roller derby rewards struggle and vulnerability. You push an impossible, unmoving wall for two minutes and everyone sees you fail, but the next day you come back stronger. You get knocked out of bounds a million times in one scrimmage, your whole team watching, then next week, you’re cleaner on the lines. Derby doesn’t let you skip steps, but it does reward you for taking them.
Off skates, I saw the other people in my league allowing themselves to be messy and vulnerable and human with each other and themselves, and I realized that this was the how I’d been searching for all the way back in Ohio. This was how they celebrated their queerness. I started doing it, too.
The word “lesbian” doesn’t scare me anymore. I write queer books. My friends and I poke fun at the Portland queer housing posts that discriminate against Capricorns. When my girlfriend and I see two other women holding hands in public, we nod at them in solidarity, because we are all part of this community that feels vibrant and safe and messy and like coming home, all at once.
Through derby, I let coming out be a celebration. It wasn’t the only thing about me, but it was one of them. And I loved it about myself.
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