‘We just want to live’: Brazil’s first transgender football club use sport to find acceptance

An all-transgender football team in Brazil is using the team to cross barriers and find a path to acceptance.

Raphael Henrique, 33, founded Meninos Bons de Bola, Brazil’s first all-transgender men’s football team, in 2016.

Scars can be seen across players’ chests, with others wearing binders pulled tightly around their upper bodies.

Brazil is the country with the highest mortality rate for trans people, and Henriques says “We just want to be able to live and go beyond the statistical lifespan of 35 years.”

“The mission of the team is to bring knowledge and use soccer to cross barriers, and to occupy spaces that we have the right to occupy but are usually denied to us.”