By J S Gupta
The following article is an exploration of trans women in sport, focusing specifically on a recent case in the US state of Oklahoma.
The case involves a wrestling promotion threatened with legal action by local government - should they allow trans women to compete in their state in the future. We will look at transphobia, exclusion and how pro-wrestling is a space for queer expression.
Background
This case was first reported by pro-wrestling blog Real Rasslin on 16 April 2024. Real Rasslin shared that the Oklahoma State Athletic Commission (OSAC) (the regulatory body for all combat sports in the state, including boxing and MMA) had itemed a discussion about bringing punitive measures against major professional wrestling promotion All Elite Wrestling (AEW).[1] More information has steadily come about since this initial report, as well as reactions from the parties involved.
The article indicated that the OSAC was questioning the participation of Nyla Rose, former AEW Women’s Champion, for her existence as a trans wrestler. On 23rd December 2023 she competed in a two minute bout against Alejandra Lion, the first event promoted by AEW in the state of Oklahoma.[2] To the OSAC this is unacceptable. The state’s administrative code, written in 1999 and updated in 2008, prohibits combat sports matches between ‘males and females’; defining each as ‘having XY and XX chromosomes respectively’, and refusing to sanction permits for matches between these two categories.[3]
Sports writer Sean O’Leary shared minutes from the January OSAC meeting on Twitter. Misgendering Nyla Rose throughout, these minutes show that after a conversation about the undisclosed “issues that come along with male vs. female wrestling”, the Commission voted to warn AEW that if they “do this again [they will be met with] punitive action”.[4]
The clear issue here is that the OSAC does not view trans women as women and, because they feel it is ‘improper’ for ‘men and women’ to compete against another in a wrestling match, they feel they have a legal recourse to prevent Nyla Rose from engaging in women’s division matches while she is in the state of Oklahoma.
A lot of this will sound all too familiar to those of us who have been following along with the trans athletes ‘discourse’ – which is to say ‘the panic around trans people competing in sport’. None of this rhetoric will seem all that novel. Trans women specifically have been demonised for wanting to ‘ruin’ (compete in) women’s sport. Transphobes are insisting that trans women are guaranteed to win any contest against cis women and thus should either be forced to compete as a male athlete or be excluded all together. And of course, as has been frequently pointed out, this does not mesh with reality. Trans women have no essential ‘biological advantage’ as many believe: it is a requirement for most international sporting bodies that a trans person must undergo hormone replacement therapy before they are permitted to compete. But you may be questioning all this, finding this specific case strange, asking yourself: “Wait a minute, isn’t wrestling fake?”
The ‘Worked’ Sport
Pro-wresting is fake or rather, it is ‘worked’ or ‘a work’, to use terms wrestlers themselves use. The reality of pro-wrestling is that while there is a lot of ‘real’ – people really do jump off ladders, go through tables, get slammed into the mat, and so on. Wrestlers will also perform submission moves upon each other and sometimes even strike each other, but the ‘fake’ comes from the fact that these moves are performed, as the wrestlers say, ‘safely’ – with no intent to genuinely injure or cause serious harm to their opponents. These fights are staged, the intent is for it to look real and feel real to the audience, to engage them in the story being told through the fight. Two wrestlers may pretend to despise each other in the ring, while backstage they will be friendly more often than not (some of the best, most hard-hitting matches are between best friends).
And of course the most ‘fake’ aspect of wrestling is the fact that unlike ‘real’, or ‘shoot’, combat sports: the outcome of a match is always agreed upon before the bout. Championships are awarded by the people running the wrestling promotion, to whomever they think will engage the audience the best, as well as whomever the promoter believes to be the most hardworking and reliable. So in this sense, the only real competition in wrestling exists backstage, in the same way employees compete for promotions in any other job. This has always been how wrestling has worked, for a century at least. Pro-wrestling is a worked sport and the athletes competing against each other in the ring are not really competing at all, but co-operating with each other to put on a great show for the audience.
Putting all that in mind, this brings into question why the hell a body like the OSAC needs to prevent trans wrestlers, like Nyla Rose, from competing in women’s division matches. It doesn’t matter if she’s physically stronger than all the other competitors. In the end, whether she wins or loses, is determined by the person booking the match; and like all wrestlers, Nyla does have her wins and her losses. In the world of professional wrestling she has no ‘biological advantage’. She wins if the promoter believes it’s good for the story or ‘angle’ being booked. So why then threaten to penalise a wrestling promotion over a match between a transgender woman and cisgender woman? Why have it be regulated at all?
Bodies like OSAC have existed throughout the United States for many years, and many of them do regulate pro-wrestling. This is a carryover from the period in which pro-wrestling was still treated like it was real or ‘shoot’ sport. Newspapers would report on wrestling wins and losses alongside boxing and football, and athletics regulatory bodies would also regulate the wrestling business as they would any shoot sport. Wrestling has been exposed as a work numerous times since that period in history, largely by the WWF (now WWE). Most notably, in 1989, when wrestling promoter Vince McMahon testified that wrestling was fake to the New Jersey Senate in order to pass a bill de-regulating pro-wrestling in the state.[5] This would allow McMahon to avoid paying the same taxes other sporting organisations were required to pay in the state, as well as avoid hiring medical professionals for his events. Years later, after the controversial finish of the main event at the WWF’s 1997 Survivor Series show, McMahon and wrestler Bret Hart would directly tell the general audience about wrestling’s worked nature in separate interviews. By the time the OSAC was founded in 1999, anyone who should have expertise in the field of combat sports would know full well that pro-wrestling was fake.
So does OSAC think that pro-wrestling is real? Surely not. The worked nature of professional wrestling had been considered an open secret for decades before wrestlers and promoters finally ‘exposed the business’. Sure, there is still a culture among people within the wrestling industry to remain somewhat secretive, not wanting to reveal everything about how the business works. But at the same time, they will produce documentaries indicating to their audience how fake everything is, and give interviews talking fairly openly about the storytelling involved with wrestling. Outside of children, only a minority of people are unaware that pro-wrestling is worked. It is very unlikely that anyone in OSAC believes something that is easy to disprove with a simple web search. So why cause a fuss over Nyla Rose? The answer is simple, though some cis people won’t like it – the reason is transphobia.
Transphobia and Sport
Sport is about fun, or at least it’s supposed to be. Competition should be about the joy of partaking as much as anything else, the adrenaline rush you feel. And of course winning is important - pushing yourself to be the best you can be, taking on other top athletes in your chosen sport, to demonstrate the potential of human endurance. Unfortunately, so much of contemporary sport has become about money and politics. The politicisation of sport has always been true of international events like the Olympic Games, but now, due to rampant government led transphobia, it has become equally true of sport nationally and locally, even at a primary education level; and not because of trans people but because of the transphobes who don’t want them to exist.
It’s almost funny how the same group of people who were crying about ‘politics in sport’ because of athletes protesting the US’ national anthem, are the same people trying to exclude trans people from competition. This sort of hypocrisy is par for the course when it comes to the reactionary elements in our society. The active attempt by a governmental institution to exclude an entire social category of persons from a recreational activity, is far more political than an individual simply refusing to participate in something.
There is a clear, vindictive and hateful agenda behind all of this. They stopped pretending to simply be ‘concerned’ about the cis women they infantilise. The mask fell off long ago. They just hate trans people, and it should be okay to point that out. ‘They’ referring specifically to the reactionary cisgenderist element that has control over governments, such as the Oklahoman state government, and its various regulatory bodies. There is little question that these members of the OSAC have a high level of contempt for Nyla Rose and women like her. The misgendering of her in the minutes is evident of that. The fact that members of the Commission feel a need to table an item such as this for an official meeting is clear evidence as well. This has even been argued by prominent figures such as former WCW World Champion, Kevin Nash. On a podcast, Nash argued that such commissions being put in charge of pro-wrestling are ‘antiquated’, stating that “because they've got the racket still set up, they try to politicize it.”[6]
Of course this situation is not an isolated case. In March 2022, the state of Oklahoma signed the ‘Save Women’s Sports Act’ into law. The legislation prevents women from joining women’s sports teams if they weren’t assigned female at birth. This includes professional teams and amateur teams as well as children’s sports teams. The act even includes a clause that prevents ‘certain groups’ from challenging schools on transphobic policies.[7] An NBC News article about the signing of the bill states that “between Jan. 1 and March 15, state lawmakers proposed a record 238 bills that would limit the rights of LGBTQ people – or more than three per day – with about half of them targeting trans people specifically.”[8] There is clearly a culture of transphobia in the upper echelons of Oklahoman government. They can attempt to disguise it as ‘concern for cis women’ all they wish, but it’s incredibly transparent what the reality is – to eliminate trans people from ‘every day society’. To force trans people ‘back into the closet’ and keep them there. Failing that, they wish to make every moment of their existence as miserable as possible - to the extent that trans kids can’t even play on a children’s sports team. They won’t let trans kids play.
It’s important to stress that this campaign by the cisgenderists is not just an issue specific to Oklahoma. Numerous other US states have had this exact same issue. Here in the UK, the same ideology has consumed the national government in Westminster, as well as many political parties, both mainstream and fringe. It is becoming true of local and national politics in many other countries as well, including Russia, Poland, Hungary and Turkey.[9] It is slowly becoming an international crisis, this pervasive reactionary element imposing their own deluded beliefs and hateful agenda upon society.
They are trying to ruin every area of public life for trans people. We cannot allow them to ruin pro-wrestling as well.
Queer Expression and Pro-Wrestling
The worked nature of pro-wrestling means that the focus of wrestlers is different to say a UFC fighter or professional boxer. They’re still athletes, and they still need to train in order to perform at the high level they do - to ensure they perform safely and maintain their strength and agility. However, performance in pro-wrestling is as much about creativity and craft as it is about athleticism. It is a marriage between art and sport. There is an element of storytelling, more important is the way the wrestlers present themselves, crafting personas that engage the audience. This makes wrestling a space for self-expression as much as it is a space for athletic spectacle. And this means that there is room in wrestling for exploration of queer identity.
Even when you look at wrestling in a more superficial, surface-value sort of way, you can see where queer people can fit in. The new names people develop for themselves, the loud expressive outfits, the celebration of the eccentric and unique, presentations of hypermasculinity and hyperfemininity in a way that’s almost satirical. There are a lot of similarities between something like wrestling and drag or ballroom.
That being said, wrestling - for the longest time - was dominated by very cisgender and heterosexual expressions. What nods to queer existence that did exist were often hostile or fetishistic. Though this has changed for the better in recent years. I view this turn towards inclusion for queer expression as a result of a larger change in culture over the past few decades. For instance, as wrestling has crossed over with other subcultures it has opened up to alternative, non-normative forms of expression. There has also been an increase in the diversity of body types in wrestling, champions no longer have the same uniform look. And this includes women’s wrestling which has also gradually become less centred around a cis male gaze, allowing for freer and more diverse female expression. From this queer presence in wrestling has been allowed to be established.
Numerous openly gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender wrestlers have risen to the top of their respective promotions. They’re winning world championships, they’re in prominent positions on the card at wrestling shows. They’re given opportunities to publicly represent their promotions and they’re given roles behind the scenes as well. But it’s not just about putting them in those positions, but allowing them to be openly themselves.
We see this through the recent work of wrestlers like Anthony Bowens: walking to the ring in shocking pink ring gear and publicly scissoring both allies and opponents alike. Bowens would be the first openly gay wrestler to hold a World Tag Team Championship in a major promotion (AEW), and would go on to win the company’s Trios (Six-Man Tag Team) World Championship as well. Meanwhile the current AEW Women’s World Champion, the ‘very bisexual’ Toni Storm, has also embraced a bold new gimmick; presenting as an Old Hollywood diva, with the sapphic undertones of her storylines progressively becoming overtones.
AEW has also featured several trans wrestlers on national television and on its pay-per-views, aside from the aforementioned Nyla Rose. One such example is the non-binary wrestler Abadon who has adopted, as the name suggests, a demonic persona that makes them a very unique and engaging presence in the ring. Another example, and previously signed to the promotion, is genderfluid wrestler Sonny Kiss who was ‘allowed to present herself in a feminine way’ while wrestling in the men’s division. Kiss has been able to express her gender in a way that wasn’t played for laughs or to receive queerphobic ire from fans; in fact she was often the recipient of cheers and support from the crowd.
Queer expression also thrives on the independent wrestling circuit. The most notable example is the series of ‘Big Gay Brunch’ events hosted by gay pro-wrestler Effy, as part of the Game Changer Wrestling (GCW) promotion. Running regularly since 2020, the events showcase LGBTQ+ wrestlers including the previously mentioned Sonny Kiss as well as prominent names like Kidd Bandit, Devon Monroe, Max the Impaler, Commander Sterling and Fred Rosser. Drag queen Pollo Del Mar frequently hosts these events and has even gotten involved in a few bouts herself.
Other GCW events have also included many of these stars, wrestlers competing without gendered divisions or restrictions. Their recent ‘Clusterfuck Forever’ event saw an enormous 80-person battle royal match featuring an amazing diversity of talent all competing against each other: trans and cis, hetero and gay, man and woman and neither/both; wrestlers of a vast array of identities and backgrounds.[10]
One of the competitors in that match was the excellent Mikey Speedball, a Canadian wrestler who dominates on the independent circuit due to their in-ring skill. Mikey Speedball and numerous other non-binary wrestlers evidence how wrestling is a space where non-binary athletes have potential to thrive. Wrestling is a space where gender doesn’t need to matter at all, outside of individual expression.
This surge of queer presence in professional wrestling presents us with a form of queer expression that is competitive and combative. It shows the world that queer people don’t have to be meek and submissive, we are also allowed to be aggressive; allowed to fight and to win. And though wrestling, like other combat sports, is typically seen as inherently masculine, queer wrestlers have demonstrated how it’s also a space for people who exist outside of ‘traditional’ masculinity. Queer wrestlers are allowed to be serious. Queer wrestlers are allowed to be fun. They’ve been allowed to bring a level of vibrance to a sport and artform that previously hadn’t been accepting of them.
Queer wrestlers, including trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming wrestlers, have asserted a presence in professional wrestling. Nyla Rose is not alone in this space, but she is the wrestler who is the most high profile and the one who has been targeted here.
Who is Nyla Rose?
Nyla Rose is (openly) transgender and is often aggressively defined as such by the press. Of course neglecting to mention that she is one of the most engaging people in wrestling today. Nyla Rose has a charisma that is unmatched by many on the AEW and Ring of Honor (ROH) rosters that she frequents. Nyla is a heel wrestler, one of the best in the business, representing the villainess that exists within every woman. She’s rough, she’s mean, she loves to roast her opponents and powerbomb them in the middle of the ring. Though she should be on the receiving end of boos for her actions against the ‘good guys’, she tends to draw a lot of love from the crowds instead, because they’re engrossed in her persona.
Highlights of her career include her 101-day-long reign as AEW Women’s World Champion in 2020, her time in a tag team with MMA star Marina Shafir, and her 2022 feud with Jade Cargill. More recently she had a fun match in October 2023, in Japanese promotion TJPW, against wrestler and idol Maki Itoh. In December she won the inaugural Pandemonium Tag Team Championship with long time frenemy Serpentico. And in February of this year, she had an excellent two-out-of-three falls tables match against Athena for the ROH World Championship.
Nyla Rose is a versatile and very capable competitor. She is a talented athlete performing at the highest level in the sport of pro-wrestling. She deserves a lot more respect for her skill and her craft. And the ordinary people of Oklahoma deserve to see her wrestle without restrictions being imposed on her by a transphobic local government.
Rose has responded to the situation with the irreverence that she has become infamous for on Twitter. Her first public statement, in reference to an OSAC document that did not name her directly, read:
“WHO THE FUCK WAS IT?!! Don’t worry Oklahoma I’ll find the dastardly Transgender that checks notes entertained fans!!! HOW DARE THEY MAKE PEOPLE HAPPY?!!!”[11]
This was followed by a tongue-in-cheek complaint that the controversy was turning her into a ‘babyface’ (heroic) wrestler in the eyes of the audience and a tweet comparing the OSAC to a bigoted X-Men villain.[12] [13]
The promotion involved in all this, AEW, has also stood firmly behind Nyla Rose, with numerous fellow wrestlers sharing their support for her. AEW and ROH’s head booker and promoter, Tony Khan, stated on a media call that he was ‘shocked’ by the situation and that “AEW stands by Nyla Rose and all transgender people who want to play sports.” He talked positively about Nyla’s impact behind the scenes, supporting other wrestlers backstage and helping out with AEW’s other projects. He concluded his statement by saying: “If the AEW locker room which consists of people from all over the world and all different backgrounds and beliefs, if everybody in the locker room can embrace Nyla, I would hope the Oklahoma commission can do the same thing."[14]
In May, AEW released a new t-shirt featuring an image of Rose superimposed on the word ‘HER’, in the colours of the transgender pride flag, all royalties going to the organisation Freedom Oklahoma.[15] The group refers to itself as “Oklahoma’s only statewide 2SLGBTQ+ advocacy organization”.[16] It is engaged in organising efforts across the state and in all the sovereign tribal nations in the region as well, focused on “creating collective, community-based safety” and attempting to “fight harmful policy attempts”.[17]
Nyla Rose transformed a rather ugly situation into a more positive one, not only raising awareness for the problems trans people face in Oklahoma but also promoting and raising money for groups that are trying to change things for the better.
To Conclude
Wrestling is special. It’s ‘fake’ fighting, yes, but it’s also so much more than that to a lot of people. Wrestling is a celebration of human diversity – people of various backgrounds, genders and body types all beating the crap out of each other for people’s entertainment and for the love of the sport. For queer people in particular, it can be a space for them to express themselves, to be themselves and be cheered for it. And though it has been a long struggle, queer wrestlers are welcome in the locker rooms with, and to compete against, cisgender and heterosexual wrestlers. And it’s one of the few sports that doesn’t really need gendered divisions. Male and female wrestlers can and do compete against each other all the time on the independents. Wrestling has the potential to be the crucible that tears down the lingering walls between these archaic social constructs.
The Nyla Rose-Oklahoma situation really calls to attention the reality that the ‘concerns’ around trans people in sports aren’t really about ‘safety’ or ‘fairness’ when they’re attempting to target an athlete competing in a worked sport. It’s just about exclusion and hatred for all that is queer in society. And if we’re being honest with ourselves, there is something very queer about pro-wrestling, and that’s what makes it great. Wrestling must be protected at all costs from those who would try to make it lesser and thankfully, it seems that the wrestlers themselves are ready to fight to keep wrestling queer.
Sources
[1] Real Rassling, “UPDATED with Tony Khan Response AEW Warned Oklahoma Athletic Commission”, https://www.realrasslin.net/post/aew-potentially-punished-by-archaic-oklahoma-athletic-commission, [accessed 19/04/24]
[2] Ibid; cagematch.net, “ROH on HonorClub #44”, https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=383228, [accessed 20/04/24]
[3] “Okla. Admin. Code § 92:10-1-5 - Sanctioning permits”, Cornell Law School – Legal Information Institute, https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/oklahoma/OAC-92-10-1-5, [accessed 20/04/24]
[4] Twitter Post from @stoleary2, 17 April 2024, https://twitter.com/stholeary2/status/1780691181233672294 [accessed 19/04/24]
[5] “Now It Can Be Told: Those Pro-Wrestlers Are Just Having Fun”, Peter Kerr, New York Times, 10 February 1989, https://www.nytimes.com/1989/02/10/nyregion/now-it-can-be-told-those-pro-wrestlers-are-just-having-fun.html [21/04/24]
[6] “WWE Hall of Famer Kevin Nash On AEW’s Issues With Oklahoma State Athletic Commission”, Max Everrett, Wrestling Inc., April 24 2024, https://www.wrestlinginc.com/1568917/wwe-hall-famer-kevin-nash-aew-issues-oklahoma-state-athletic-commission/ [accessed 24/04/24]
[7] Save Women’s Sports Act 2022, Oklahoma Legislature, http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/cf_pdf/2021-22%20ENR/SB/SB2%20ENR.PDF [accessed 21/04/24]
[8] “Oklahoma governor signs transgender sports ban”, Matt Lavietes, nbcnews.com, 30 March 2022 18:00 UTC, https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/oklahoma-governor-signs-transgender-sports-ban-rcna22210 [accessed 20/04/24]
[9] “Rights of LGBTI people: advances achieved are under threat, PACE says”, Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, 25 January 2022, https://pace.coe.int/en/news/8582/rights-of-lgbti-people-advances-achieved-are-under-threat-pace-says [accessed 22/04/24]
[10] “GCW Joey Janela’s Spring Break: Clusterfuck Forever”, Cagematch, https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=384628 [accessed 22/04/24]
[11] Twitter Post from @NylaRoseBeast, 17 April 2024, https://twitter.com/NylaRoseBeast/status/1780724575308804104, [accessed 02/05/24]
[12] Twitter Post from @NylaRoseBeast, 17 April 2024, https://twitter.com/NylaRoseBeast/status/1780728251201245605, [accessed 02/05/24]
[13] Twitter Post from @NylaRoseBeast, 18 April 2024, https://twitter.com/NylaRoseBeast/status/1780799914114429258, [accessed 02/05/24]
[14] “Tony Khan: I Was Disappointed To See The Warning From The Oklahoma Athletic Commission, I Absolutely Stand By Nyla Rose”, Skylar Russell & Jeremy Lambert, Fightful, 18 April 2024, https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/tony-khan-i-was-disappointed-see-warning-oklahoma-athletic-commission-i-absolutely-stand-nyla-rose [accessed 02/05/24]
[15] “Nyla Rose – Her (All Royalties Will Go To Freedom Oklahoma’s 501C3)”, prowrestlingtees.com, https://www.prowrestlingtees.com/wrestler-t-shirts/nyla-rose/nyla-rose-her-all-royalties-will-go-to-freedom-oklahomas-501c3.html [accessed 02/05/24]
[16] Freedom Oklahoma Twitter Account, @FreedomOkla, https://twitter.com/FreedomOkla [accessed 02/05/24]
[17] “About Us”, Freedom Oklahoma, https://www.freedomoklahoma.org/aboutus [accessed 02/05/24]
Comments