Yes, this really happened.
An Irish “LGBTQ+ Inclusive” soccer team won the 2022 Ladies Gaelic Football Junior J Shield Final by dominating the competition thanks in part to an older, balding man playing against teenage girls.
The team is called Na Gaeil Aeracha, which bills itself as Ireland’s “first explicitly LGBTQ+ inclusive” football club, Reduxx reported on Aug. 5.
Giulia Valentino, a biological male who identifies as a transgender woman, was playing against young women and girls in the tournament which was held July 27 through Aug. 3.
Valentino, the report noted, performs at fetish clubs under the moniker DJ Mav and identifies himself as a “trans dyke.”
"Prior to relocating to Dublin in 2019, he was a resident DJ at a BDSM venue called the Ritual and Torture Garden, performing at both of their locations in Rome and London. According to a post on Valentino’s SoundCloud page, he also performed at a bondage festival in Munich. He is currently the resident DJ for a fetish club in Dublin called Nimhneach, which means ‘painful’ or ‘sore’ in Gaelic," the report said.
Photos of Valentino playing in the junior girls tournament began to circulate on social media after sports writer Ewan MacKenna called attention to the results. "While MacKenna took no issue with Na Gaeil Aeracha itself, he noted that it was likely dangerous for a biological male adult to be playing against teenage girls," Reduxx noted.
MacKenna posted a screenshot of Na Gaeil Aeracha’s policy on inclusivity from their now-private Instagram page in which the team reiterated that its players “may play at training or in a match for the team they best identify with, without restriction.”
Another policy posted by the football club explicitly states that medical transitioning is not necessary.
While Valentino’s exact age is unknown, in a 2021 panel interview he stated he had been playing sports for “over 30 years. I quit team sports when I started feeling uncomfortable with the male environment… Actually, I am playing rugby with a women’s team, and it is my first team experience after the transition.”
While he now lives in Dublin, Valentino is originally from Italy, and his LinkedIn states that he is presently employed as a program specialist for TikTok.
Following MacKenna’s initial tweet about the tournament, Reduxx noted that Na Gaeil Aeracha "locked down its social media accounts as women’s rights advocates took the charge and called for the team to have their title removed for cheating. Multiple women’s rights activists were rapidly banned following tweets about Valentino’s participation against the young female footballers, including popular UK-based feminist influencer Aja."
The Ladies Gaelic Football Association (LGFA) has said it is developing a policy around transgender players following Valentino's appearance in the junior girls tournament.
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