It was a sunny spring day at St.Matthew elementary school. The day had been long but it was almost over. I was lined up at the door of my grade six classroom eagerly waiting for the end of the day bell to ring so I could finally go home. I was standing near the front of the line with some of the boys in my class. All of the girls were standing at the back talking to each other. The boys were all talking about their football game from over the weekend. All the boys who played football in my class were all on the same team. They were talking about the highlights of their win and how they have not lost a game yet and the season was almost over. I stood there listening. I felt embarrassed and just wanted the bell to ring. “Hey Emma how was your game this weekend?” asked one of the boys who knew I also played football but was on a different team. 

The question I dreaded the most. I didn’t even want to answer. Unfortunately, at this time all the boys were looking at me. Embarrassed I said, “We won our first game. The only reason we actually won though was because the other team didn’t show up and had to forfeit”. They all started laughing. I honestly didn’t blame them. They all knew what team I was on and how bad our season was going. I was on an all-girls team where none of the girls actually wanted to play and didn’t take it seriously. I think they were all forced into playing and I was the only one who actually willingly chose to be there. After the laughter stopped, they all looked at me and one of them said, “Just wait till next year, you can be on a team with us. You won’t have to worry about being on a bad team”. I could tell that some of the boys felt bad for me because I wanted to play football and I wanted to be taken seriously.  

When I told my parents I wanted to play football, they were a little hesitant because I would be the only girl. Luckily for them, I ended up on an all-girls team. Unfortunately for me though I dreaded going and doing something I loved because I knew how either the practice or game was going to go; horribly bad. 

Up until this year, everyone hung out together and played together at school and gender didn’t matter. But now that we were in grade six that all suddenly changed. I wanted to play sport with the boys in my class and the girls all wanted to sit around and just talk. This was the year I truly noticed I didn’t fit into the ‘norm’ of being a girl.