Transgender footballer withdraws from women’s draft
MELBOURNE : Transgender footballer Hannah Mouncey has withdrawn her nomination from the draft for the Australian Football League’s professional women’s competition and accused the league of blocking her from playing in the top flight.
Mouncey, formerly known as Callum and a member of the Australian men’s handball team in 2016, had hoped to enter the draft for the 2019 AFLW competition after being ruled ineligible for the 2018 tournament that ran earlier this year.
However, she said the toll of trying to meet the AFL’S standards had proved “too great”. The 28-year-old hit out at the AFL on her Twitter account, saying they made “every effort to wear me down to a point where I couldn’t continue”.
She said, “Eventually what has gone on behind the scenes will come out, and it paints a sad picture of an organisation with no leadership, who cares only for its corporate image above all else.”
The AFL said on Monday it would not comment on Mouncey’s complaint until the nomination period for the draft closed at the end of the week.
In February, the AFL approved Mouncey’s request to play for Melbourne club Darebin in the state-level VFLW competition, and the 1.88m, 100-kg footballer finished the season as the second highest goal-kicker.
The AFL released its “Gender Diversity Policy”, which governs the participation of “trans and non-binary people”, on August 31.
The policy demands that players can prove that their testosterone levels have been maintained below a threshold for at least two years.