Ladies! Ladies,’ intones the male commentator with relish, ‘there are gentlemen present!’ His commentary accompanies archive black-and-white TV footage – and the scene is priceless. A pack of women, 60s’ hairdos miraculously intact, pummel the living daylights out of each other – on roller skates. The onlooking crowd – including, indeed, several gentlemen, but also rather a lot of ladies – roars with delight. Welcome to the ferocious world of roller derby, a hidden enclave in queer history.

It’s not a sport to which Brits have had much exposure. And yet in the US, after its birth in 1935, roller derby enjoyed massive popularity for more than 40 years – even breaking into the difficult terrain of televised sports entertainment, broadcasting across the US from the 50s through until the 70s.

Although both men and women participated, it was remarkable in that it was one of the first sports in the US to allow women to compete professionally. Roller derby women were tough and hugely popular, way before the toned, fake-tanned, muscular Barbies of World Wrestling Federation or American Gladiators attained superstar status on TV screens in the US and several other (unfortunate) countries around the globe.

For the uninitiated, roller derby is a contact sport based on formation roller skating around a track. Each team has five members – a pack – including a Jammer. It’s the Jammer’s aim to out-race each member of the competing team to complete a full circuit of the track – that’s how you score for your team. Here’s the fun bit: other team members (Blockers) have to block the opposition’s Jammer, and stop their opponents blocking their own Jammer.
As queer modern-day roller derby player Mel Mushill explains, the rules in essence are: ‘No hits above the shoulder or below the knee – and all combat is on the side, not the front of the body.’ Beyond that, players can get fairly creative in their efforts to impede the opposing Jammer, and distract the opposing Blockers. It’s fast, it’s furious, and it’s a free-for-all with elbows and limbs flying, and plenty of girl-on-girl pile-ups.

DERBY DYKES
Unsurprisingly, roller derby has always been a breeding ground for dykes. This year’s London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival screened a fabulous ten-minute documentary, High Heels on Wheels, which uses archive footage, photos and contemporary interviews from roller derby in its heyday – and to unearth its lesbian history. Collecting some wonderfully entertaining reminiscences, director Leslie Sloan, 38, from Los Angeles, dug several ex-pro dyke derby girls out of the woodwork: ‘When Donna Cassyd, the producer, and I talked to our friends, it seemed that everyone had a friend who was, at some stage, in a roller derby.’

The attraction of roller derby was understandable: in the 1950s it was one of the few arenas in which athletically gifted women could be recognised, make a living from sport, travel, and escape the restrictive options available to women in the years before feminist activism began impacting their daily lives. This, according to Sloan, was especially true for working-class women. She adds: ‘It was a very ethnically diverse sport – you had African-American teams, Latino men and women; and it really was a working-class sport.’ It opened opportunities for the derby players that they wouldn’t otherwise have had.



Tonette Kadrmas, who played for the Kansas City Bombers from 1969 to 1975, remembers how difficult it was to be young, athletic and female: ‘What I would have loved to have done is play in Little League [baseball and softball], but they didn’t have those things for little girls.’
Instead, she took up roller derby – and graduated to professional league. ‘It was very exciting, because there was a place for all of us to go. We were talented, we were athletic. We needed to have some place to express what we did well. It was unique. Here were women out there, competing against each other, and broadcast on TV.’

And, of course, it was a great way to meet girls – at a time when that was no easy feat.
For Sara Sproul, professional derby player for various teams between 1963 and 1968, the sport proved to be much richer in lady-pickings than your average modern-day dyke bar. ‘[Before derby], I was going with a girl, just doing what came naturally, and I didn’t know gay from anything at the time. And she said, “Well, you know, just because we’re doing this, doesn’t mean we’re lesbians”. When she left, I looked up the word “lesbian” to see what she was talking about! So I was a little naïve. But that,’ she says, with a very wicked twinkle in her eye, ‘was before I joined roller derby. I don’t know if I would have ever run across any lesbians if I hadn’t joined.’

But even though roller derby was a hotbed for budding and practising lesbians, the sport’s halcyon days did not always coincide with gay banner-waving. Helen Linska, who played professionally for various teams between 1953 and 1971, explains, ‘When I was skating, it wasn’t that open. In the 50s, you had to be really, really careful.’
In its later years, though, that started to change. Kadrmas remembers: ‘Back in the late 60s and early 70s, homosexuality was starting to roar a little bit, and we weren’t as in the closet as they maybe were in the early 50s. It was a freedom that I hadn’t experienced before. It was thrilling to be in an atmosphere where people were out of the closet; didn’t give a you-know-what. Lots of people that were fans were a little bit gay, too,’ she laughs.

KITSCH-SLAPPING
By the time Kadrmas was playing professionally, derby was a televised entertainment sport – and becoming increasingly stagey, with a particular titillating emphasis being placed on the violence between opposing team members. Perhaps roller derby had had its day, and the television networks were desperate to drive up falling ratings; perhaps the sport was keeping pace with a new, competitive media environment; perhaps it was a backlash against the visible feminist activism of the day – whatever the reason, the sport became almost farcical, a parody of its former glory. Soon after, the televised broadcasts were stopped.

Reflecting on this era, both Mushill and Sloan comment that roller derby wasn’t taken very seriously. Sloan remembers watching it on TV when she was a child: ‘It was a bit kitschy,’ she admits. ‘It was in danger of being camp.’ Many people debated the verity of the violence in the sport – was it staged merely for the cameras?
Mushill says she thinks about 30% of the violence was staged. ‘It seemed like it was more an entertainment than a sport,’ she reflects. ‘But maybe they had to push the entertainment factor. Even nowadays, women’s sports really have to push to get some of the population to watch them.’



Mushill thinks that it’s a completely different sport now – a lot more serious, she claims. She’s one of many who are rediscovering roller derby; part of a US-wide resurgence in interest. She used to play rugby – until the costs (insurance, travel) became prohibitive; she was then introduced to roller derby by a lesbian acquaintance. It’s been three years since Mushill has been playing for Atlanta Rollergirls on an amateur basis – and she’s hooked. ‘I brought a lot of the things I knew from rugby into roller derby – especially how to take and give the hits; how to shoulder into somebody and lift them up.’

Ouch. Sounds like the violence is still around, then. Certainly, a cursory glance at the names adopted by modern-day derby girls is revealing. Mushill herself goes under the fabulous moniker of Raging Cock; among her team mates are Demi Gore, Switchblade Siouxsie, Belle of the Brawl, and the delightfully-named Pippi Asswhuppin.
But Mushill and Sloan both say that the new-school roller derby isn’t as heavily populated by lesbians as other sports are – like rugby, or NBA. ‘Roller derby is a very different community from, say, the rugby one,’ says Mushill. ‘I can think of only six women in my league who are gay. When I played rugby, it was the ultimate gay sport. Only three of the women were straight!’

The ladies attracted to the new derby are, according to Mushill, a mix of ‘punk rock, rockabilly, and tattooed girls – and lawyers, real estate agents; a real variety.’ There is still, she reckons, a very large lesbian fan base.
Sloan backs this up, describing the women who play the modern version of the sport as ‘Gwen Stefanis on skates; punk skater-girls – but not lesbians’.
But maybe it’s a sign of the times that these women don’t necessarily wear the badges or adopt the traditionally recognisable sartorial signs of lesbianism. Many of the younger women may well be dating girls off the skating arena – but identify more closely with a certain subculture or music scene than with a more mainstream, generic lesbian scene.
After all, another quick glance at Mushill’s team-mates brings up Lola Lixxx, Forniskate, and Lucy Lewd – in an all-girls’ team. Mighty queer, if you ask me.

www.atlantarollergirls.com
www.myspace.com/ragincock