Davinia Forgy (Gaymer Grrl, left) and Ella Holman (Ella Fistgerald) of the D.C. Rollergirls. (Photo by Pablo Raw)

In the final edition of the long-running Blade series on the rookies and veterans who make up the LGBT-inclusive sports teams in the area, we take a look at two LGBT skaters from the D.C. Rollergirls.

The Rollergirls are one of several women’s flat track roller derby leagues in the region and just a few months ago they won the 2016 Best of Gay D.C. award for best LGBT sports team.

This Sunday, Dec. 18, they will host a rules clinic and scrimmage in their practice space in Hyattsville, Md., and will follow that up with three boot camps in January. The training sessions and recruitment efforts are all part of the buildup to their upcoming league season and their travel team’s schedule.

The Women’s Flat Track Derby Association has long been a frontrunner in establishing parameters for an inclusive sports community. In 2015, organizers broadened their discrimination protections for gender identity to include transgender women, intersex women and gender-expansive participants.

Davinia Forgy is one of the rookie players benefitting from the governing body’s trans guidelines as she finds herself with a new opportunity to be called an athlete.

Known on the track as Gaymer Grrrl, she didn’t play any sports growing up and her extracurricular activities included marching band and gaming. She could often be found deep inside Call of Duty, Halo and Metal Gear Solid 5.

“Gaming is an escape from reality for me,” Forgy says. “It’s a place where I can turn my brain off and play out a story.”

A former student at the University of Maryland and now working in implementation at a software company, Forgy heard about the Rollergirls through a friend and attended a boot camp in the spring of this year. She ended up falling in love with the sport.

At the Rollergirls boot camps, the veterans do the bulk of the training through drills, exercises and preparing the rookies for the mental mindset needed to be successful in roller derby.

“The veterans are so positive and are always offering encouragement. They don’t ever want to hear you say, ‘I can’t,”’ Forgy says. “Both on and off the track, the roller derby community thrives on the idea of female empowerment.”

The Rollergirls are trained for both blocking and jamming and Forgy has found herself enjoying the demands of jamming. The parallels between gaming and jamming may be one of the reasons that she is hooked.

“”It’s five on five and I really enjoy that you are moving, pushing and breaking up walls,” Forgy says. “The mental game and strategy is similar to a multi-player online battle arena. You have to constantly think about what is going to happen in the next five seconds. The same things apply in roller derby.”

Ella Holman has always been drawn to the sports community. Growing up in Boston, she was a three season athlete and her sports included soccer, basketball, tennis and lacrosse. While attending American University, she played four years of club rugby.

After graduating, she considered continuing with one of the local rugby clubs but while watching a roller derby match, she found herself intrigued by the sport. At her first boot camp in 2014 she was surprised by the many aspects of a sport that was new to her.

“I was used to the body contact, strategies and working as a team from all the other sports I had played,” Holman says. “It took me a while to adapt to the technical skills, skating components and the falls in roller derby.”

Holman works for a nonpartisan nonprofit and skates as Ella Fistgerald. After three years with the Rollergirls, she is enjoying sharing her learned knowledge of technical skating, maneuvers and strategy along with her love and passion for the sport.

“Our skaters come from all walks of life; some have just moved here and some are just looking for a change,” Holman says. “A catchphrase in our sport is ‘derby saved my soul.’ We want to foster whatever each rookie is looking for.”

The sport itself has evolved over the years and there are junior leagues popping up for girls from 8-17 years old. Both the adult and youth governing bodies share the notion that there is room for everyone.

“A lot of the derby leagues are 15 years old now and there has been a generational shift,” says Holman. “It used to be all fishnets and sparkles, but now it is more athletic and inclusive. It feels like all the traditional assumptions are gone and I am excited to see where it goes next.”