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Ngofeen: In 1998, the World Cup Final featured the French soccer
team—affectionately known as “Les Bleus”—facing off against the
world champions—Brazil. Marine Rome was 11 years old. But she
remembers it as if it were yesterday.
Marine: Pour les filles, ce n’était pas très facile de jouer au foot. Il n’y
avait pas beaucoup d’équipes, et pas beaucoup d’endroits où on
pouvait jouer. À treize ans, j’ai dû choisir : jouer avec des garçons plus
jeunes, ou avec des femmes adultes. J’ai vite compris que dans le foot,
il n’y avait pas de place pour quelqu’un comme moi. Mais je voulais
que ça change.
Ngofeen: After that World Cup victory, Marine divided her life
between school and soccer. When she wasn’t in class, she trained three
times a week with an elite women’s soccer team. Yet somehow, both
on and off the field, she never quite felt like she belonged.
Ngofeen: There was another reason Marine felt out of place in her
teens: she was a lesbian, but she wasn’t fully out. After high school, she
came out little by little, made new friends, and set soccer aside for a
while—but she always missed it. When she turned 24, she moved to
Paris, and started looking for a club to play with again.
Marine: Je cherchais une équipe. Je voulais jouer pour le plaisir, sans
compétition. Je voulais une équipe inclusive, pour jouer, mais aussi
pour être moi-même. Alors, j’ai entendu parler des Dégommeuses.
Marine: Pour la première fois, je voyais une équipe avec des joueuses
de toutes origines, et de tous âges. Sur le terrain, je les voyais rire,
s’aider, s’encourager. Je me suis sentie à ma place.
Marine: Dans le monde du foot, c’est comme si les filles comme nous
n’existaient pas. Nous sommes invisibles. La Fédération Française de
Football préfère montrer les joueuses qui ont un mari, des enfants, un
style féminin. Il y a des joueuses lesbiennes, mais elles ne peuvent pas
le dire ouvertement.
Ngofeen: One of her teammates once told Marine about a time les
Dégommeuses were harassed by a bunch of teenagers from a
neighboring building.
Ngofeen: The building was just above the soccer field les
Dégommeuses were using, and the boys had climbed to the seventh
floor and opened a window. They grabbed some water bottles.
Marine: Ils ont commencé à jeter des bouteilles d’eau sur nos
joueuses. Et en même temps, ils criaient des insultes sexistes. Pour
l’équipe, c’était vraiment horrible. Et à ce moment-là, on ne pouvait
rien faire.
Ngofeen: But Marine, Cécile and the team want to take action. They
believe that soccer is the best way to foster community and solidarity.
So the team partners with a non-profit that helps lesbian and trans
women refugees build a new life in France.
Ngofeen: One of the players, called Marco, joined the team in 2018
after moving to France from Chechnya. In Marco’s home country,
being gay could mean a prison sentence, or even death. For her, that
weekly get-together at the Café des Sports became the key to a new
start in France.
Ngofeen: As she listened to Marine and the other players laugh and
banter, Marco’s French started to improve.
Marine: Elle nous a dit que pour elle, les Dégommeuses sont comme
sa famille, parce qu’elle n’a pas de famille. Maintenant, elle comprend
presque tout ! Avec l’aide des Dégommeuses, Marco a même trouvé du
travail en France. Fred, une autre joueuse, lui a trouvé un emploi dans
son entreprise de construction.
Ngofeen: To Marco, Marine and many of their teammates, Les
Dégommeuses has become more than just a team.
Ngofeen: The first time Marine saw Megan Rapinoe play, she was
awe-struck. She called her “hyper canon”—that’s “super hot” in French
slang.
Ngofeen: And then it came time for the Women’s World Cup. A little
over two decades since that French victory that started it all for
Marine, she was excited to watch the best women’s teams in the world
face off in France, and cheer on so many strong, out female players.
Ngofeen: The day of the opening game, France played South Korea.
Fifty Dégommeuses showed up all together, in their green uniforms.
The stadium was packed. They were thrilled—and quite a bit nervous.
They had to face a guard—le vigile—as he inspected their backpacks—
leurs sacs à dos.
Ngofeen: Marine held her breath, waiting for a security guard to call
them out. Miraculously, it never happened! Les Dégommeuses held
the giant rainbow flag above their heads for a full five minutes. You
could see it from all around the stadium—Le Parc des Princes. A bold
statement of pride in one of the biggest stadiums in France.
Marine: Avec cette action, nous n’étions plus invisibles. Des milliers
de supporters nous ont vues au Parc des Princes. Mais aussi à la
télévision, dans les journaux. Et sur Instagram, Twitter et Facebook…
Nous étions fières de représenter la diversité dans le sport.
Ngofeen: Les Dégommeuses weren’t sure what the reaction would be,
but after a while, they noticed people around them clapping, and even
some cheering. People tweeted photos of them from around the
stadium or posted them on Instagram. After the game, some people
even came up to congratulate them.
Ngofeen: For Marine, moments like this make her want to work even
harder to promote an open and inclusive mind-set in sports. Watching
French people cheer on the openly gay players on the US team—even
wearing Megan Rapinoe’s sports jersey—it made Marine realize how
much things had changed in 20 years.
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