Football
Kolkata hosts first mixed-gender football match, refereed by a transperson
While an equal number of men and women players participated in both teams, another feature of the match was the referee, Suprava Roy, who belonged to the transgender community.
Mixed-gender football match in Kolkata (Source: Dipsita Dhar/Facebook)
The Ramleela Maidan in Entally, Kolkata remains usually occupied in the evenings. It's one of the crowdy hotspots in the city of joy that is either thronged by teens playing football and cricket, people pacing through its boundaries for evening walks, or sometimes by political parties for their gatherings.
On Friday evening, the Ramleela ground witnessed a unique football match that caught the audience's attention. The city witnessed its first-ever mixed-gender football match. People were in awe to see a woman going for a sliding tackle to snatch the ball away from the opponent's forward who was a male, while a male goalkeeper diving to save a shot taken by his female opponent.
The match saw the presence of the former captain of the Indian women's football team Kuntala Ghosh Dastidar, India's first Arjuna award-winning woman footballer Shanti Mullick and one of the leaders of the Gender Equality movement Saira Shah Halim.
