Minnesota women’s team signs trans man as first out trans player
A women’s soccer team has welcomed a trans male player as ‘everyone deserves an opportunity to play’ (Getty Images)
A trans man has joined the Minnesota Aurora FC, a women’s soccer team, as the team’s first out transgender player.
The community-owned pre-professional soccer club, which competes in the USL W League, announced that it had signed Isaac Ranson.
Ranson is joining the team off the back of an accomplished college soccer career at Cal State Fullerton, during which he won the Big West Conference Goalkeeper of the Year award not once but twice.
Speaking to the Minnesota Star Tribune, Aurora club president Saara Hassoun said: “Aurora believes that everyone deserves an opportunity to play soccer, and we are glad that we are able to provide a safe environment for Isaac to continue his stellar career. Our players, coaches, and organisation are unified in welcoming Isaac to Aurora.”
Ranson has previously spoken about his identity. In an interview with The Big West last year, he shared that he used to be in denial about being trans, and had a hard time accepting that he was queer.
“I wasn’t truly living who I was inside,” he said. “In my second year of college, I began really thinking about my gender, and I was still in denial a lot. But, around that time, I started hearing more terms and more representation of transgender and non-binary people.”
He went on to say how he began truly embracing who he was at the end of this second year at college.
“That summer of 2023 is when I decided to cut my hair short, and it was the best decision I’ve ever made,” Ranson recalled. “When I turned and looked in the mirror, I literally cried tears of happiness. The reflection I saw was the person I had felt like on the inside.”
He continued: “With my haircut and binder, I just felt so confident and powerful. It was very affirming for me and my identity.”
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