Transgender man signs with Minnesota Aurora women’s team

A Minnesota women’s soccer team has signed its first out transgender player, adding a decorated goalkeeper to its roster as debates over gender and athletics continue to reverberate nationwide.

Minnesota Aurora FC, a pre-professional club in the USL W League, announced the signing of Isaac Ranson, a transgender man who was assigned female at birth and starred at Cal State Fullerton, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune. Ranson, a two-time Big West Conference Goalkeeper of the Year, leaves college as one of the most accomplished players in program history.

“Aurora believes that everyone deserves an opportunity to play soccer, and we are glad that we are able to provide a safe environment for Isaac to continue his stellar career. Our players, coaches, and organization are unified in welcoming Isaac to Aurora,” Aurora club president Saara Hassoun said in a statement to the Star Tribune.

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The Aurora, a community-owned club, has quickly built a following in Minnesota since its founding in 2021.

Ranson’s path to this moment, however, has been shaped as much by personal reckoning as athletic success. In an interview published by the Big West Conference, he described years of feeling out of place before finding the language to understand his identity. “I was in denial about my identity,” Ranson said, recalling how he struggled to reconcile his sense of self with expectations placed on him growing up.

It was not until college, he said, that he began to see himself reflected in others and to more fully understand his gender identity. Even then, the process was uneven. “I wasn’t truly living who I was inside,” Ranson said.

The signing arrives at a moment when transgender participation in sports has become a political flashpoint. Across the country, Republican-led states have advanced laws requiring student-athletes to compete on teams that align with their sex assigned at birth, part of a broader push that has largely targeted transgender women and girls.

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Coming out within a team environment brought its own pressures. Ranson described being misgendered and deadnamed during practices and games, an experience that left him emotionally drained. “Every misgender felt like a stab to the heart,” he said. But after coming out to teammates, he said he received support from coaches and players, who worked to create a more inclusive environment.

That support, he said, proved transformative. “If the people around me can accept me and love me, then I can finally accept myself,” Ranson said in an earlier interview.

“I definitely feel safe to be myself in women’s sports,” Ranson told the Star Tribune. “Although I don’t identify as a woman, I still feel included. I’m proud to be part of women’s soccer because of how supportive and how much of a community it is.”