Kicking Out Transphobia was originally conceptualized as a tournament fundraiser in 2020 in Philadelphia as Kicking Out Transphobia Mundial: a partnership between CASA Soccer and the Philly Falcons. Yunio Martinez is the founder behind the mundial program; a visionary who wanted to use engagement from a large tournament to highlight the inequities that exist in soccer related to gender and other complex issues. Since its inception, Yunio has spearheaded campaigns across North America to offer this program to many clubs as a model regarding how advocacy for inclusion could look like. Yunio has been recognized and awarded for his ground breaking work and RCSC is honored to join him in his quest to amplify this message in our local community. While advocacy should never be limited to cyclical events, offering those events is a wonderful platform to launch from.
On May 21st 2023 Rain City Soccer Club was proud to host its first ever Kicking Out Transphobia match, a highlighted special event that was part of the much larger club-famous RCSC Friendly Tournament. Records were set. Not only we were proud to be the first West Coast club to offer such an event, our attendance for the program was the highest in Kicking Out Transphobia’s recorded history. Fifty-two members from all over the United States and Canada enrolled, registered, and showed up to play. It was also the first match comprised of trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming full-roster teams. We were also the first club to have our program proudly attended and celebrated by CHEER Seattle, our local LGBTQIA+ cheer volunteering group in the Seattle area.
Rain City Soccer Club is excited to see other clubs join this movement, and extremely proud to still hold the title of “Largest Gender Non-Conforming Participants KOT Match”. From this work and other grassroots efforts, this program has grown exponentially across the United States and Mexico. Rain City Soccer Club’s President has teamed up with Yunio to attend as many of these matches as possible and help spread the word not just limited to the greater Seattle area.
For more information on what RCSC is doing as a club around Kicking Out Transphobia in the news:
https://player.fm/series/beau-my-god/kicking-out-transphobia-with-rain-city-soccer-club
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubr1EOZ4U4E
RCSC is a proud partner of Kicking Out Transphobia Mundial, however we are not a funding affiliate of the Philadelphia program. For more information on that program run by Yunio Martinez, please see below:
https://www.kickingouttransphobia.org/
For more information on other club programs please see these links:
https://www.bonfire.com/store/kicking-out-transphobia-fundraiser/
http://www.phillyfalcons.org/pages/kickingouttransphobia
https://phillygaycalendar.com/events/kicking-out-transphobia-tournament-fundraiser/
https://federaltriangles.org/event/kicking-out-transphobia/