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FORT COLLINS
Electric Mayhem loves being a “jammer.” She’s the star of the roller derby squad, the sprinter, the point-scorer, the focal point for the crowd as everyone waits for the whistle to blow.
When the game begins, she rushes forward and mashes into “blockers” from the opposing team. The pack writhes around the track while a “pivot” shouts numbers at her blockers, indicating to them where the jammer is trying to break through.
One! Two! Center! Three! Four! Three!
She will do anything to break through the wall of bodies and sprint around the track. If she manages it, the blockers will do anything to prevent her from completing that lap.
“The crowd loves a big hit,” said Electric Mayhem, known as Jordin Frey away from the track.
“Electric Mayhem” aka Jordin Frey, left, talks with “Shug” aka Amy Nichols as they put their gear on before FoCo Roller Derby practice at Rollerland Skate Center on January 26, 2026 in Fort Collins, Colorado. (Photo by Seth McConnell)Frey joined FoCo Roller Derby in Fort Collins in 2022 as a “fresh hop,” the league’s name for rookies making their way through the mandatory 12-week training program.
Over the course of the training, the new skaters build a shared trust that’s essential to participating in the league. It’s both a practical matter (every skater has to serve on a committee), and a cultural one, since joining the league means joining a community beyond the rink. That community has shifted and grown amid the recent, often caustic, national dialogue on gender and sport.
This year, FoCo Roller Derby is celebrating its 20th anniversary in the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association, an international governing body of the sport, and for 20 years it has taken its role as a community refuge very seriously.
If the fresh hops don’t wash out of basic training and show up to officiate a certain number of games, then they’re invited to weekly practices with the rest of the league — a stage called “fermented hops.” After another 12 weeks practicing alongside experienced players, they get to scrimmage. Finally, six or so months later, they can skate in their first “bout,” the roller derby term for a game.
The slow build is a matter of safety. Roller derby is an extremely physical sport. There’s pushing, shoving, hip-checking, shoulder-slamming, sprinting, ducking, jumping, spinning and all of it on quad roller skates.
“It seems so long, but every step is so fun, I just want to soak it up,” said Atlas Wylde, who goes by Rebel Yellow, after their first league practice as a fermented hop.
The rookies navigate the new sport together stacking up skills as the intensity increases. For 19-year-old Cyrus Van Briggle, aka Chameleon, and 18-year-old Toby Campbell, aka Ruby Doom, that camaraderie is what keeps them coming back to the rink. Both started as junior roller derby skaters and are playing their first season in the FoCo league. Van Briggle started skating for a now-defunct league in Greeley when he was just 7 years old. Campbell was introduced to the sport by his mom.
“This is one of the only sports you can be in just to be in,” Campbell said. “It’s not like everyone is striving to get to the big leagues — there isn’t a big league.”
“Chameleon” aka Cyrus VanBriggle, left, and “Ruby Doom” aka Toby Campbell pose for a portrait during FoCo Roller Derby practice. (Seth McConnell, Special to The Colorado Sun)This is one of the only sports you can be in just to be in. It’s not like everyone is striving to get to the big leagues — there isn’t a big league.
— “Ruby Doom” aka Toby Campbell
“At the beginning the culture was really just about welcoming all body types, all backgrounds and all body types, all shapes and sizes,” said Jayne Niemann, aka AR-15, who started skating in the league in 2009. But the league naturally attracted people who felt unsafe or pushed out of other circles, including skaters from the LGBTQ+ community and victims of domestic violence.
“It’s empowering, it was where they were finding confidence again,” Niemann said.
That empowerment was largely enabled by the fact that roller derby was considered a women’s sport.
“There was no room for men on the track,” said Alex Cohen, author of “Down and Derby,” and a consultant and skater in the 2009 film, “Whip It.” “There were male refs and male mascots. But I think it was this unspoken rule that, like, you all get to have a place everywhere else, this is our place.”
Over the past few years, though, as a slate of political campaigns, state laws, court cases and executive orders has squeezed transgender athletes out of sports, some local roller derby leagues — including FoCo Roller Derby — have moved in the opposite direction, absorbing potential players of all genders, including men.
“Roller derby is not often one of the sports that people think about when they think of ‘sports.’ I think we get overlooked quite a bit,” said Mad Rodenbaugh, aka Mad Cow. “But I cannot overstate how important this place is for people who are trans and queer, who really don’t have a space elsewhere in sports.”
“Breezy” aka Emma Mares warms up during FoCo Roller Derby practice. (Seth McConnell, Special to The Colorado Sun)The sport with nine lives
That roller derby is once again rebranding doesn’t come as a surprise for anyone who has been tracking the sport’s history.
“Roller derby is like the sport that had nine lives, right? There were so many moments in time where it was like, all right, this is it. This is the end of the line, no more roller derby,” Cohen said.
The sport started in the 1930s when people would gather for dayslong walkathons and dance-till-you-drop contests. Looking for a new way to draw Depression-era crowds, an event promoter in Chicago came up with the idea of two-person teams skating 57,000 laps around a flat track, racing a total of 2,700 miles, or the equivalent of skating from New York to San Diego. These events took weeks to complete.
The sport was revised a few years later into the fast-paced, full-contact format that it’s known for now. It waxed into the 1940s, waned in the 1950s, reemerged in the 1960s and in the 1970s got a full Hollywood makeover, blending the athletics of the game with flashy feuds and all-out brawls televised on local TV.
Then, in the mid-1970s, the two main derby leagues consolidated and shut down. A couple of attempts to revive the sport followed.
“In the ’80s there was this whole roller jam television show that, believe it or not, was like part roller derby, but with an alligator pit? It was just insane, right?” Cohen said. “After that, I think everyone thought, ‘OK, that’s it. Roller derby is dead.’”
Then a guy in Texas who went by “Devil Dan” had an idea.
“He thought of it as kind of a get-rich-quick scheme, like, ‘Let’s put on a derby show, it’ll be women and roller skates and people will pay money to see that,’” Cohen said. He promised fire breathers and live music. But “Devil Dan” Policarpo spent the money that four teams of women had raised for the new league and skipped town shortly after the first event.
“Ruby Doom” aka Toby Campbell, left, battles for position with a teammate as they run a drill called “Don’t be the Jammer” during FoCo Roller Derby practice. (Seth McConnell, Special to The Colorado Sun)“The women were really pissed off, but they were also like, you know what, just because he took off doesn’t mean that we can’t keep doing this,” Cohen said. “So that’s really where modern roller derby, as we’ve known it for the past 20-plus years, comes out of: Austin, Texas.”
The Austin founders came up with the idea of playing with pun-laden pseudonyms — reportedly inspired by Austin’s drag performers — and the whole scene swerved toward the fish-netted, feminist crowd.
“Here was this sport that, regardless of how you felt in the quote-unquote real world, you could be a badass. Right? You could wear fishnets and roller skates and have this pseudonym, and you could be whoever you wanted to be outside of your job or your student life or your family or whatever,” Cohen said.
“Shug” aka Amy Nichols sports a series of stickers on her helmet. (Seth McConnell, Special to The Colorado Sun)Redefining who can play
On Feb. 5 of last year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which leans on Title IX — a 1972 law that prohibits discrimination based on sex in schools that receive federal funding — to prevent transgender athletes from participating in sports as a matter of “safety, fairness, dignity, and truth,” according to the order.
(In 2023 the Biden administration proposed a rule change that interpreted Title IX in the opposite direction, using the law to prevent schools from categorically barring transgender athletes from sports based on gender identity.)
Though Title IX is only enforceable at educational institutions that receive federal funding, the language of the order is deliberately broad, suggesting all “sport-specific governing bodies” ought to overhaul their gender policies as well, including international associations. The global implication seems directed at the International Olympic Committee, whose policy is to leave eligibility up to each individual sport. But it chilled the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association, or WFTDA, which moved their 2026 global championship to Sweden from the U.S.
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SUBSCRIBEThe day after Trump’s order was signed, the association also issued a gender clarification statement on its website:
“Any individual of a Marginalized Gender, regardless of presentation or the gender they were assigned at birth, is welcomed and encouraged to participate in the WFTDA in any capacity, including skating on a WFTDA charter or holding elected office.”
The association included an extensive list of what they meant by “marginalized gender,” including, but not limited to: trans, cis, intersex and gender expansive women; genderqueer, genderfluid, and nonbinary individuals; and two spirit individuals; followed by a note that the list “is not exhaustive and will be updated as needed.”
They also launched an open division test season, meaning teams composed of any gender — including men — can apply to have games sanctioned by the association. The test season is a way of gauging interest in the creation of an all-gender division for their more than 400 active leagues worldwide, and to collect data that will inform an appropriate rankings program and competition structure. The test season runs through June.
FoCo Roller Derby started an open division team in 2024, but so far uptake and competition has been slow, according to Niemann. And discussions about launching the team weren’t always smooth considering the sport’s women-focused foundation.
Despite initial pushback, the sense of inclusion that has defined roller derby for the past 25 years ultimately trumped the discomfort of expansion in Fort Collins, where players look out for each other on and off the rink. If someone needs help moving they’ll easily find extra hands, if someone gets sick others will set up a meal train, Niemann said.
“If anyone in the league is going through a hard time they can lean on the league,” Niemann said. “It was like that from the start, and it has taken a lot of work to keep it like that.”
“Illegally Grey” aka Mary Branton-Housley lays down as she catches her breath during practice. (Seth McConnell, Special to The Colorado Sun)If anyone in the league is going through a hard time they can lean on the league. It was like that from the start, and it has taken a lot of work to keep it like that.
—“AR-15” aka Jayne Niemann
There are 55 skaters either training or competing for the five teams in the FoCo Roller Derby league. The league’s A-team, the Micro Bruisers, travels to regional tournaments and competes against teams in the North America-West division. Of the 96 teams in the division, 10 are from Colorado, including two teams from Denver Roller Derby — Mile High Club and Bruising Altitude — that rank in the top 10. (Mile High Club is ranked second behind Portland’s Rose City Rollers at the time of writing.)
FoCo’s B-team, the Brew Crew, doesn’t compete for rankings, but will travel to play tournaments and against other leagues’ B-teams. The league also has two local teams, the Ale Marys and the Growlers, who compete in scrimmages — mostly against each other — and serve as a landing spot for skaters who are either working their way up to the travel teams, or want to compete more casually. The fifth and newest team is their open division team, The Taphouse Titans.
Open division teams only play one another, a way of consenting to the fact that there might be a male on the opposing team. At practice, players wear different colored wristbands to show their comfort levels without subjecting anyone to invasive assumptions: a red wristband means that they play by WFTDA’s gender policies, which excludes men whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth, while a blue wristband means they don’t care. Most players wear both.
“We’re still adjusting to it, we haven’t had a lot of cisgender men wanting to skate with us,” Niemann said. “I think that makes sense, I mean, they can feel the history too.”
“Bambiguous” aka Evelyn Squires rests her hands on her head while talk with “T. Wrecks” aka Kaitlan Wyatt, center, and “Shred Lasso” aka Aspen Engstrom as they take a break outside Rollerland Skate Center. (Seth McConnell, Special to The Colorado Sun)A place of their own
One of the FoCo league’s long-term goals is to purchase their own practice space. For now, they collect $50 per month from their skaters to help pay the annual $25,800 fee to Rollerland to rent the space out one night per week, a schedule sometimes preempted by birthday party takeovers.
Since 2018 the league has been meeting regularly to scope out a space of their own — all they need is about 10,000 square feet of smooth concrete — and has been setting aside a small savings pile since 2022. But the national focus on trans athletes, along with the Trump administration’s various bans against “gender ideology extremism,” have dried up potential corporate sponsors and grant funding.
“We can’t touch anything having to do with federal funding,” Rodenbaugh said. “They wouldn’t touch us with a 10-foot pole, anyway.” Until then, they’ll keep watching each other’s backs and pressing forward together.
“Roller derby changes a lot of lives. That’s the only reason it works,” Frey said. “Why else would you want to do something that you have to pay to play, travel, have to work a full-time job during and then train late at night? It changed my life. It has made me more self-assured. Now when I have to do something scary, I’m like, this isn’t scary, I play roller derby.”
“T. Wrecks” aka Kaitlan Wyatt lays on her back to catch her breath between drills during FoCo Roller Derby practice. (Seth McConnell, Special to The Colorado Sun)Hence then, the article about as anti trans laws exclude athletes colorado roller derby leagues are adapting so everyone can skate was published today ( ) and is available on Colorado Sun ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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