On a Saturday in July, my girlfriend and I decided to try something other than ordering Taco Bell and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, by buying tickets to Austin’s local roller derby league. I had known about TXRD (Texas Roller Derby, if you can imagine) since I’d first moved to Texas, but did what I always do with cool events, which is talk about how much I want to go to an event without ever going to one. So I decided, in my last couple months in Texas, to finally give it a go. It only took 15 seconds into the game before I turned to my girlfriend and said, “I think I’m in love with this sport.”

According to its website, TXRD “has been wowing crowds since breathing new life into the sport of roller derby in 2001.” Comprised currently of five teams — the Holy Rollers (yes, the very same Holy Rollers as Whip It’s villains), the Putas del Fuego, the Hellcats, the Rhinestones, and the as-yet undefeated Cherry Bombs — the league draws in wildly enthralled crowds with the same frenetic energy as any major league sport. “To give a little perspective,” says Anya Marx (she/her), TXRD’s public relations manager and a team member of the Cherry Bombs, “I played in a league in Orlando, and we were lucky if we had 30 people come, and most of them were our parents. That is not the case here – we have 1000 people come to our games, so we feel a responsibility to put on a good show.”

The energy Anya describes is not exaggeration: at the July game I attended, held at the Palmer Events Center just across the river from downtown Austin, I was overwhelmed by the crowd’s size and fervor. We saw fans not just in merch but dressed in goofy, glittering costumes. (Queens in nun drag or people wearing rosaries for the Holy Rollers, devil horns and flame-emblazoned booty shorts for Putas del Fuego.) The MC of the game was dressed in a fairytale Renaissance Faire getup complete with lavender-painted skin and large plastic horns. The only other athletic event this felt comparable to was a queer pro-wrestling league match I saw months earlier in downtown Austin. At both the marriage of true athleticism with absurd theatrics was on display — and clearly welcomed by the hundreds of fans in the DIY stands. Little girls ran around, throwing their bodies at one another in a childlike facsimile of what they saw on the track. They, alongside the adults, were just as invested in the outcome, shouting the names of skaters as they sped past, cheering for them and giggling when the skaters waved their way. It was evident for most in attendance, this was not a one-off try at something new; this was a lifestyle, an identity, a community.

Photo by Matt Charnitski

Roller derby may not have been invented in Austin, but it’s clear its contemporary culture was. Innovated in the 1930s by Leo Seltzer and Damon Runyon as a co-ed sport, contemporary interpretations of derby have TXRD to thank. While there’s no concrete historical record to point to, several sources credit the Austin-based league with reviving the sport in the early 2000s. While Austin nowadays is not quite the weird oasis it once was (now bars are crowded with Tesla tech bros playing at being cowboys), the spirit of the city as a purveyor of punk rings perhaps no truer than derby’s origins.

According to Milla Juke-a-Bitch (she/her), TXRD’s league historian, performance director, and also a member of the Cherry Bombs, the origin story of derby in Texas plays well into the city’s “Keep Austin Weird” roots. A man known by no name other than “Devil Dan” sought to develop the league, finding interested players in 6th Street regulars and splitting their teams along the bars they frequented. When it became clear this instant moneymaker was anything but, the mysterious organizer vanished from Austin. However, the eagerness of the players remained. When asked how the formation of the league has evolved into what it is today, 23 years later, Milla bluntly says: “It’s been this constant building of ‘What the hell are we doing, and how do we do it right?’”

Since 2001, the league has explored many iterations of itself, through constant reinvention, and a fierce dedication to a love of the game. “All the skaters that are a part of the league are the ones running it,” Milla continues. As is customary for most roller derby leagues, TXRD is entirely skater-owned and operated, and has been from the get-go. “The track you see, we built that: we set it up, we tear it down, we take it back to our warehouse [at the end of games],” says Anya. “The skaters in some instances who are skating that day are building that track, so often we have 12-plus hours of building up that track and taking it down after and driving it to Buda. So everything you see is orchestrated by someone in the league, and likely someone skating that night.” (For reference, Buda is about 30 minutes south of Austin.)

It’s clear that for all the fun of the league, it is not fun that comes lightly. When a skater is admitted into the league, they pay a $10 buy-in to own part of the business that is TXRD. It is welcomed and expected for skaters to be involved beyond skating — the league is reliant on the physical and mental dedication of its participants to keep it running. Milla remarks that without this work, the league would not be sustainable, and so therefore “you do the work so you can…continue doing what you like to do.” For many members of the league, being a part of TXRD is both the first time they are skating and the first time they are taking on the roles of business owners. Members who had never put on skates and struggled with math may within a short amount of time be an expert on the track and on QuickBooks. The league’s translatability into “real-life skills” cannot be understated.

“Definitely a hobby that is like a part-time job,” says Scrapegoat (they/he), a member of both the local Rhinestones and All Scar Army, TXRD’s travel team. They also serve on the D&I and Production Committees.

Jose Queervo (they/them), TXRD’s facilities coordinator, Roller Rookies manager, and also a Rhinestone, agrees: “I’ve developed skills that I would have never imagined, and honestly probably wouldn’t have developed otherwise, from leadership and conflict resolution to written communication and community organizing. I’ve learned everything from marketing strategy to how to drive a box truck, from how to catch a loose bird in a building to how to assemble and disassemble our track. I could do it with my eyes closed!”

While it is typical for most roller derby leagues to be skater-owned, what is not typical about TXRD is, well, quite a lot else. Firstly, while the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) boasts over 400 leagues across the world, the Roller Derby Coalition of Leagues (RDCL) – which supports much rarer banked tracks – claims only eight. While not part of RDCL, TXRD is a banked league, but that’s not where the differences stop. The campiness I witnessed, and loved, at the TXRD game I attended is apparently not typical of most derby leagues. “When this league was created it was skating and athleticism but it was also entertainment,” Milla says.

Photo by Ralph Arvesen

A quick crash (haha) course in the sport: a typical game is divided into two 30-minute sessions, made up of “jams.” For each jam, each team has five players on the track — four “blockers” and one “jammer” — designated by a star on their helmet. The goal of the game is for the jammer to push through the blockers, make a loop on the track, and every player on the opposing team that they pass counts as one point. The role of the blockers is to block the jammer — oftentimes by forming a red-rover style blockade of bodies that the jammer seeks to jam through. Needless to say, the sport is physically brutal and engaging to witness. While TXRD does follow these derby basics, the Penalty Wheel’s existence adds an extra flavor to players breaking the rules. Rather than a simple punishment, the Penalty Wheel is spun, its results commanding the offending players or team to perform stunts like a relay race, a jumping contest, or (my favorite) a pillow fight. These penalties therefore do not spark a vicious tone, but rather infuse every aspect of non-game time with the same energy and entertainment as the rest.

“The penalty wheel is unique to us,” says Anya, “I think camp is a good word for it, we prioritize performance in addition to the competition. We have practices around penalties, and how to be better at fake-fighting and make it more entertaining for the crowd. I can’t say this with 100% certainty, but I can say it with 99% certainty, that there are no other leagues playing how we do.”

“Our TXRD ruleset is proprietary and almost exclusively ours,” says The Star, a Hired Gun (a skater who stands in for absent skaters from any of the league’s five teams, before being drafted to one) and, according to their email signature, TXRD’s “Secretary of Skate.” TXRD’s charm lies in its singular vision for the sport: that it is as much a place of performance and entertainment as it is one of competition and athleticism. It’s no surprise a sport like roller derby – especially the way TXRD plays – would feel like an oasis for female and/or queer skaters.

“I think it’s one of the only sports where cis women are not constantly being compared to cis men, and where they are seen as the top athletes,” says Scrapegoat. “In most sports, women’s divisions are constantly being compared to the men’s.” He describes derby as a reclamation of the body, “from shame, or disconnection, or trauma,” and that the autonomy gained from participating in such a sport is unlike any other sport out there. While derby leagues are not always super queer, the sport’s emphasis on self-empowerment against patriarchal odds can be very attractive to queer people, or anyone seeking to be themselves in a welcoming space.

Photo by Brent LaVelle

It seems no surprise why queer people, especially lesbians, would flock to derby: a sport with no true male equivalent, where the women’s leagues are the leagues; a sport where femininity and power are not seen as at odds, but rather existing in symbiosis; a sport where community, arguably, comes before anything else. Whip It knew what it was doing adding itself to a long legion of lesbian-but-not sports movies (looking at you, Bend It Like Beckham and Stick It). Though of course, even queer and feminist spaces are not without critique, or without the need for change.

Anya and Milla both emphasize the league’s Gender Policy is very important, and that including trans, nonbinary, and intersex skaters in the league is extremely intentional. Roller derby in many leagues remains a “safe haven” for trans athletes, but of course, like anything, there is not a homogenized acceptance toward trans inclusion.

Scrapegoat, who runs the Instagram @the.trans.agenda (described as “a roller derby team of trans and non-binary skaters, advocating for roller derby that affirms, supports, and prioritizes our community”), makes a salient point that a league welcoming trans skaters is not always doing the extra work it takes to truly ingratiate trans people into the community and call out transphobic behavior. “We have a lot more trans skaters and I think folks are generally having a better experience,” they say, “But I want to emphasize that trans people did — and continue to do — a lot of work to make TXRD trans-inclusive and affirming.” He describes that, while TXRD and most other derby leagues are more trans-inclusive than other sports, much of the same microaggressions persist, such as transmasc and transfemme skaters alike being scrutinized for “hitting too hard” or playing more aggressively than cis skaters. However, both Scrapegoat and other skaters agree that TXRD has been more or less forthcoming in changing what needs to be changed.

“Something that I love about TXRD is that its ears remain open,” says the Star. “It’s always developing and evolving to make the space progressively safer and more hospitable for queer and gender-expansive folks. It definitely doesn’t have all the answers as an entity, but redeemably, TXRD uplifts marginalized voices to instill our sentiments into their values. I have never felt more accepted in a sport in my life.”

Jose Queervo agrees that TXRD and derby as a whole provide an “eccentric, counter-culture vibe” that allows queer and trans folks alike to feel seen and supported, even if much of that support has had to be hard-won from the inside out. “As my relationship with my gender changed, I realized how crucial it was to be in a space that could evolve with me, and especially a space that I could have an active role in shaping.”

Most skaters I had the pleasure to speak credit TXRD, for all its human bumps and brambles, with providing them a community and a sense of self that they dare not take for granted. “I am a better version of myself because of TXRD and roller derby,” says Zara Problem (she/her), TXRD’s accounting manager, a member of its D&I Committee, and another Cherry Bomb.

“What I think as a queer trans woman playing this sport is that I get to use it as a place not to just be athletic but also to explore the presentation of my identity on that track as an athlete and individual,” says Ghost in the Chelle (she/her), a member of the Holy Rollers who won MVP the night I got to see her win alongside her team in July. As a college swimmer in a “really heteronormative space,” she says derby has been “different in so many great ways” for her as a woman and a queer person. “I can feel tough, cool, and amazing in my skirt, dress, fishnets, whatever. But it’s my choice in how I show myself to the world.” Milla comments that being in derby gave her the confidence to stick up for herself in her 9-5 job to demand better pay, while Zara Problem attests that those she’s met through derby “have made life long impacts,” and Jose Queervo lets me know they met both their best friend and their wife through the sport.

“The adrenaline rush from the sport is addictive in nature, but it’s the community that keeps you coming back,” Jose Queervo attests. “It’s a space where you can find purpose and camaraderie, where you’re encouraged to be strong, bold, and resilient. In a world that often tries to stifle those qualities in marginalized people, roller derby gives you the platform to amplify them.”

It’s clear from even just one game that the community of roller derby is special. TXRD has dedicated itself not just as a space for good sportsmanship, but for belonging to something greater: a composite of queer, trans, and/or female strength, resilience, and camaraderie. A reminder that an organized, dedicated queer community is not a pipe dream, but a powerful, brutal, beautiful, weird reality.

If you’re interested in learning more about Texas Roller Derby League, find them here at their website.

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