"Football saved my life" - World's first transgender referee reflects on journey
”My favourite line is that I’m a referee and I’m transgender, so I’ve got the thickest skin you could possibly have.”
It's a pithy catchphrase, one potentially fit for a superhero. But Lucy Clark quickly dismisses any Herculean comparisons. Instead, Clark laughs as she says it, and it’s difficult not to join in with her contagious personality.
Five years have passed since the now 50-year-old Londoner came out as England’s first-ever transgender referee. And if there’s one thing to note from the half decade that has transpired, it’s that Clark – with her long, deep hazel hair and white-hot pink nails speaking against the Google chat-provided backdrop of supple pink and purple clouds – has grown ever more comfortable in her real skin.
Nevertheless, there’s a subtle darkness to the humour. Issues surrounding transgender rights and recognition have created increasingly aggressive schisms around the world. In sport, transgender eligibility disputes have dominated various governing bodies and alienated athletes. The recent murder and misgendering of 16-year-old Brianna Grey has ignited fury across the world. Discourse on Twitter has become stultified by hate.
Clark doesn't feign ignorance of this reality. She’s familiar with, and remarkably candid about, the violence and vitriol that the transgender community has historically suffered, admitting that it was fear of just this that kept her fighting within herself for 30 years before she decided to come out in 2018.
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Certain nights, the mental battle she fought swallowed her, leading her to throw her clothes and belongings into flames in an act of self-denial.
The worry of how football would refuse to accept her weighed especially heavily, and very nearly convinced her to hang up her whistle as the 2017-2018 season came around.
“I thought the football world wouldn’t accept me to be honest with you. So I thought that would be my last season,” she says.
Lucy came out as transgender in a Sunday Mirror exclusive in 2018A slew of heart attacks, one in which saw Clark hospitalised over Christmas, inculcated her with a new perspective. With help from her wife Avril and friend and transgender boxing promoter Kellie Maloney, Clark chose to embrace her identity.
It’s a remarkable journey, one of which football resides fundamentally at the core. Clark acknowledges the irony, given elite football’s more traditional outlook on the LGBTQ+ community. But Clark considers this sentiment unilateral, and unfairly so.
A lifelong Sutton United fan, Lucy recalls a suicide attempt.
“My head was in a mess, I was going to jump but I used to go to the side that overlooks Sutton United, and so I’d look out on the stadium and I think that’s probably the reason I never jumped. If I’d gone out to the other side, I might as well have done it.
“As bizarre as that sounds, I used to look out at Sutton United, it was my love, they were my team and I’d look out and see the ground and yeah, something made me stop and that’s the only thing I can put my finger on, it’s gotta be that then. Football."
The episode goes some way in explaining Clark’s zealous conviction that football should be a place for everyone in the present day. According to a 2018 study, eight out of 10 trans young people have self-harmed and almost half have attempted to kill themselves due to bullying and a sense of abandonment.
“There has to be a place for trans people in sport, it has to be done fairly but there has to be a place for us. Especially in football,” Clark says. “Football is for everyone. It’s the biggest sport in the world. Everyone loves football. And for me, football saved my life. If I didn’t have football, I wouldn’t be here today. Football allowed me to forget what was going on in my head when I was in my teenage years and when I was down.”
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Clark has returned to Sutton United, officiated matches for their women’s and men’s side, this time as Lucy. In fact, she has returned to a number of grounds after shedding her double life, taking on FA finals from the centre of the park and returning to historic grounds she had only ever ventured through in disguise.
Lucy officiating a match between Wimbledon and Walton in the FA Women's Cup third round. (Pic: Glyn Roberts)The result is powerful, if not slightly amusing upon reflection. Clark unapologetically describes herself as a “gobs****” in those years she lived her double life. Referee berating was characteristic. She recalls a YouTube video in which she flawlessly and gruffly predicted the result for Sutton United's 2-1 FA Cup third-round win over Coventry United in 1989.
Clark's summary of the time: "I played the guy really well".
Returning as Lucy was “different”. When asked if she can boil the sensation down to a few words, Clark ruminates for a moment before deciding on the precise words. “It’s just nice to be me,” she beams.
There’s seeing her name in the program for the first time. Not forcibly wearing a tie (“I used to hate that with a passion, always have!”) or expending hours of mental energy nervously scrubbing away vestiges of nail varnish and stubborn mascara from the night before as she attended matches to officiate or watch - anything that might betray her persona as the man she was pretending to be.
In many ways, Clark says she felt relief, mostly at the large acceptance with which football embraced her on the pitch, albeit she admits that disparity between how she’s treated on Twitter and IRL can cruelly and disproportionately reflect a more vicious reality than what she experiences on her weekends.
“I think that now, there’s such a big thing about trans people in sport and the hate against trans people of which they are a very small minority of people but a very noisy one,” Clark explains.
“That’s what I try to say to people. The actual reality of your life is that people don’t care. You can walk around an airport, get on a plane and go to another country and people do not bat an eyelid. Nobody says a word. We can go to a bar, a restaurant, live our lives and everything is great.
“But as soon as you get on a keyboard and look at Twitter, it’s just like this cesspit. And it’s like why? Just let us live our lives.”
On Saturdays and Sundays, Clark says she generally can do so without any trouble beyond what she dubs fondly as “usual referee abuse”. In her near 500 matches since she’s come out, Clark can relate two instances in which the line was crossed: one in a Cup final, though she believes that the kids who began to chant-ask what her gender was were doing so less out of malevolence. “I didn’t look that glamorous while I’m reffing, I’m out to ref,” she says.
The other Clark considers an orchestrated act of transphobic abuse during a Cup semi-final from a then-park club in London two years ago.
Clark admits to feeling “suicidal” afterwards, and while she reported the incident to the police, the club received a paltry fine of £80 and a conduct warning from the FA. No charges of transphobic abuse were levied.
Lucy officiating at the Dartford versus Hashtag United's Women's FA Cup match. (Pic: Lucy Copsey)When asked whether nowadays clubs and police might take such incidents more seriously, Clark notes clubs are growing more wary of the negative optics such abuse garners, though less so at lower levels. Higher up, she believes the incident wouldn’t have been allowed to happen in the first place.
The viewpoint begs the question whether the accepted levels of abuse levied at referees is too dangerous. Clark shakes her head, admitting chastising referees has long been de rigeur (as a fan, Clark engaged in plenty of upbraiding as officials trundled to and from the tunnel).
And if she had to choose between general abuse and transphobic abuse, she knows which she’d rather.
“You get abuse. Even now I get abuse. I got abuse yesterday. And you’re just getting abuse because you’re a referee,” she says. “And as long as I’m only getting abuse for being a referee, then that’s fine. It’s water off a duck's back.”
It’s a stark outlook, but one that Clark feels is still necessary.
When asked whether football in the upper echelons might be more visibly accepting of the transgender community in the future, Clark is succinct: “No.”
Her tone isn’t aggressive, or even jaded. Simply realistic.
“I think you’re going to get the odd one or two but when you see that there’s not a single out gay player in the PL, Championship, top level of the game, the World Cup, not one player who is out as gay.”
Clark, though, remains positive. Her own story has come to inspire many within sport to embrace their true selves, whether through Trans Radio UK, helpline Truk Listens and coaching Truk United, a football team designed specifically for those in the LGBTQ+ community.
Clark admits the stardom was surprising. She admits she never envisaged herself as front page news, let alone being chased into the backseat of a blacked-out media van alongside Maloney (who had broken her ankle in the process of running off a rival paper’s reporter) in a bid to escape the flashing bulbs of paparazzi cameras at Loftus Road during her first match officiating as Lucy all those years ago.
“When I came out, I did it for myself. It was about me at that point. But literally from that day, I had a person contact me two days after, not to do with sport,” she remembers. “She was a school teacher. She said she’d read my story and she was going to go to the head of the school to let them know that she was transgender.
“It’s kinda like if you ever saw the film Accidental Hero, with Dustin Hoffman?”
Again, however, Clark declines the title of hero without a caveat. She admits that previously, she hadn't always been the best ally for her own community, rooted in fear of outing herself.
Now she won’t hesitate to brandish a red card for transphobic abuse or call out bigotry online or in the stands as she watches on, her nails always brightly polished.
“I’d probably, years ago, treat it differently to the way I would now which is wrong, and if I could tell myself 10 years ago to be supportive, I would because I expect people to support me now, right?” Clark asks aloud.
“I’ll help anyone now. And if I’ve inspired someone to become a referee, or to play the sport they love or to come out and be true to themselves, then that’s absolutely brilliant.”
If you're struggling and need to talk, the Samaritans operate a free helpline open 24/7 on 116 123. Alternatively, you can email [email protected] or visit their site to find your local branch
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