“Thanks to the Gender Identity Law I went back to t …

For ten years Mía Fedra stayed away from sports. He put away his tennis rackets and traded in sneakers for cleats. She decided to step back to finally complete her transition, abandon the androgynous aesthetic and begin to identify with the female gender. Today she is the first trans tennis player in Argentina, represents the Darling Club and competes in Seniors +35.

“I am number 3 in the ranking and every year I qualify for the World Cup in my category. The issue is that I don’t have the money to travel, and my place ends up being occupied by another. My goal is to be able to play it one day ”, he comments about his present in tennis. In the past, the male circuit remained, which he abandoned when he began working as a model and public relationsist in nightclubs, and his life took a 180 degree turn: “It is a stage that I do not regret. It helped me to step back to see things more clearly. People tell me that I lost ten years of my life, but I had a good time, I found a circle of containment. The bad thing about all that was that I started to take drugs and that hurt me a lot, ”he laments.

After being reborn and returning to her roots, she now dreams of getting trans girls to play sports and get out of the circle of the night. “We have many health problems and we are just taking off from that. When you are immersed in the night, you look ahead and do not see a light at the end of the road. On the other hand, sport is the opposite of that, it gives you the opportunity to live by day, set goals. It takes a little more effort, but you see a future. That they give you a push, it urges you to leave ”, he assures.

—You started playing tennis at the Club Village, in Adrogué, when you were very young. What is your first memory?

–The first time I went, we were a group of ten on the court and I had no experience in group sports. But I thought it was easy. We played games, but I wanted to win, I felt the same way I feel today when I have a match. At that time I believed that I had to get a ten in everything so that they did not discriminate me, so the first thing I felt was that, competition.

—At 17 you decided to stop playing. Did this decision have to do with what you were going through with your sexuality?

Yes, I didn’t want to do such hard physical and strength work because I already knew what he wanted for me. I had a disappointment with tennis because I began to think that everything I had played had been for nothing. Added to that, I started working at night, they hired me from Much Music and I stopped training. At that point, I had already started looking for Mia. It produced me, I came out dressed as a girl.

—And what was the click you made to return to the courts?

“ I was feeling worse and worse. I was tired, I had narcolepsy, I slept all day, so I decided to go back to roots. They told me that there was a tennis teacher in the South Zone, in the Club Regatas de Avellaneda, and I decided to move there again. I told my old man that I was going to sign up and that I was going to play again.

—What has changed in your life since the Gender Identity Law?

“ When the law came out, I ran out of excuses for not training. I was happy and I understood that I had to put the batteries because it was time. Thanks to the Gender Identity Law, I was able to play tennis again.

—You said that you had to get used to another game, the women’s game. Did it cost you?

-I thought I ate them raw when I started playing, and I was surprised: they eliminated me super easy in my first tournament. I had lost a lot of training time and they had advanced a lot, so I hit my head against the wall, it was a zero job. In addition, I also had relapses at night: I lacked money to pay for training, so I was looking for a nightclub to work and the next day it was useless. It took me a lot of years to be able to separate the night and the day.

—Some time ago we learned about the story of Mara Gómez, the first trans player in Argentine soccer. What made you finally be able to play in the Women’s First Division?

– I’m super excited about Mara, because of what that sport means in itself. Mark a before and after, it’s like telling the guys: well, it’s over. It served for that, to give them a bucket of cold water. It was a click to machismo.

—In your case, how was the acceptance process in the Argentine Tennis Federation?

“ I just went to change the name of the teacher’s certificate so I could teach like Mía. I asked if I could compete and they said yes, they didn’t look at me to see if I was a transvestite. I went safely, arrived fully produced, gave them my ID and asked for the change. I didn’t give them much time to think about the bureaucratic, I hurried. As I am always with endocrinology treatment, I knew that if they asked me for a hormonal study, I would be able to present a paper. But I didn’t even consider that as a possibility.

—What would you say to those people who think you can get an advantage playing with cis women?

– That we are on an equal footing, because tennis is not a strength sport. Tennis is a game of strategy, it is played with the ease of the arm, it is all a matter of technique. Those who beat me, they do it because they play better than me; and those that don’t lose because I’ve been playing tennis for 30 years. On the court you can see the pingos.

—And a trans girl who dreams of doing sports but doesn’t dare?

-I would tell you that you can, that it is healthier and less harmful. That we do sports serves as a grain of sand for the cause, to achieve inclusion, showing good examples is showing that we are useful for society.

* Ornella Sersale.