Sunday was supposed to be a good day for Fae Fulconis. She gets to play football again. Hackney WFC vs Leatherhead. Eighteen months ago she tore both her ACL and meniscus, before pre-arthritis was discovered in the same knee. Recovery has been arduous and inconsistent, physically and mentally painful. There was no guarantee she would ever run again.

The sixth tier of English women’s football might not be glamorous, but it has become home. As a trans woman born in France before moving to the US as a teenager, eventually settling in north London, home has not always been easily found.

And now, thanks to the Football Association, Fulconis will be uprooted again. From 1 June, she is one of 20 or so transgender women affected by a blanket ban from women’s football, which has 2.5m registered players.

They have been offered six free therapy sessions by the FA and told to explore coaching or refereeing. Mixed football is being trialled, but in the very early stages. Rather than a fresh start, Sunday’s match could be her penultimate in competitive football.

Fulconis is softly spoken but angry, exhausted but obstinate.

“The ban goes really against the spirit of football,” she tells The i Paper.

“It goes against what women’s football is about, and it is also a complete misunderstanding and misrepresentation of who trans women are.

“Sport should be a safe haven. The basic point of football is 22 people of different backgrounds coming together and on the pitch, they are completely equal for 90 minutes, and they are only judged by their ability to kick a ball.”

Across four seasons in England since beginning her transition, she has only found teammates and opponents agree with her view of women’s football as a game built on community and inclusivity. The only animosity she has ever felt on or off the pitch came from a coach who often would not pick her, but there was never any confirmation this was gender-related.

After the ban was announced on Thursday morning, she was overwhelmed with messages of support from current and former players. No trans women play in the top three tiers of English football, and among grassroots players, there appears little public opposition to trans inclusion.

Her suggestion is the FA’s decision is based on pressure from those outside football, rather than active players. Trans players could only play on a case-by-case basis based on testosterone levels before this ban, which is why there were already so few.

But Fulconis is adamant the ban will not stop her: “My birth certificate says that my sex is female, my passport says F, I see no reason why I can’t play football, so I’m going to play.

 “I’m going to fight this ruling. If they want to ban me, then they can physically come and get me off the pitch.”

Hackney and fellow sixth-tier team Clapton Community WFC – who Fulconis first joined after moving to England – are two of the country’s most trans-inclusive clubs. Neither have publicly commented on the FA ban, but The i Paper understands trans players’ well-being will be the primary priority behind their response.

In a statement last month after the Supreme Court ruling that the term “woman” refers to a “biological woman”, Clapton said: “At Clapton CFC, we say no. We will not bow to the demands of transphobes. We will not erase anyone from our club, our stands, or our sport.

“Football is for everyone. Our community is proudly diverse—and we will keep it that way.

“While courts and governments use fear to divide us, we choose solidarity. We choose justice. We choose radical happiness and collective joy.

“To every trans person reading this: we see you, we support you, and we will always fight for you. You belong here.”

The loudest argument against trans women’s inclusion in football centres on safety. In November 2023, four seventh-tier clubs withdrew from matches in the Sheffield and Hallamshire Women and Girls League after a player seriously injured their knee after a shot from a trans player, but there is little evidence this was anything other than bad luck. There are no other recorded instances of trans players injuring opponents.

“I have never seen safety be an issue,” Fulconis explains. “I have played against trans women, I have played with trans women in five-a-side and 11-a-side. If you look at the research, it shows that trans women might actually have a disadvantage compared to cisgender women.

“Our bone density is lower, our body produces more fat quicker, we have less testosterone and a more stable supply of oestrogen, we produce less adrenaline and our body is less resilient to effort.

“Mentions of safety are just a misconception. It is based on nothing. It is based on hearsay.”

The FA’s previous acceptable testosterone level for a trans woman – introduced on 11 April – was 5nmol per litre, towards the middle of the usual female range of two to 10. No football-specific, peer-reviewed research suggests this policy presented a safety risk.

Due to her hormone therapy, Fulconis’s testosterone is 0.7nmol/L. By her own admission, she is one of the physically weakest players on her team.

“There is this idea that trans women are men in dresses, or that we are coming to take women’s spaces, but most of these people do not realize that they have probably seen hundreds of trans women in their lives and not differentiated them,” she explains.

“We represent a very, very vast array of people who have different relationship to our genders, who are in different stages of our transitions, who want different things from our transitions. If you talk to most trans women, you will realize that we are actually terrified of people thinking that we are coming to take women’s spaces. That is the last thing we want.

“There needs to be this re-examination of who trans women actually are. We are just people trying to live our lives.”

Fulconis asks to make a last point, a warning to those who popped champagne after the recent Supreme Court ruling: “This side of the ruling that is calling to ban trans women from spaces that are meant for cis women is a big problem.

“I am not going to suffer from this, really, and my friends are not going to suffer from this. The people who are going to suffer from this are non-conforming cis women, ones with short hair, more butch lesbians, women who do not look like the ideal of womanhood pictured in the media.

“It is detrimental to all women. I have a lot of friends who are non-conforming women who have had issues in the bathroom, whereas during my entire transition, I have never had a single issue. People need to think about what the consequences of this are going to be.”