[News/People] [Australia] Sex-change athlete Caroline Layt prepares for St Joseph’s College old boys’ sports tournament

[Stephanie Stevens]

The Daily Telegraph, Australia


Sex-change athlete Caroline Layt prepares for St Joseph’s College old boys’ sports tournament

DANIELLE GUSMAROLI, The Daily Telegraph

September 30, 2016 10:00am

[Photo: Caroline Layt, who was born Kyle, played rugby for St Joseph's in 1983-84.]

THEY may be floating in a jar at home, but sex-change athlete Caroline Layt says she still has the balls to take on all-comers at her school reunion sports day.

“It might be an old boys reunion but this old girl will give as good as she gets,” Ms Layt, who was born Kyle, told The Saturday Telegraph yesterday.

She will have a separate changing room when she joins the old boys of St Joseph’s College for a sports tournament at Saint Ignatius’ College in Riverview today. But the personal trainer insists she’s ready to tackle the blokes.

“I don’t care what anyone thinks, I’m a woman now,” the 51-year-old said.

[Photo: Kyle Layt playing with the 1st grade colts Eastern Suburbs vs. Warringah rugby semi final.]

“I’ve had my balls cut off but I still kick arse. If the guys want to go easy on me because I’m a woman, they’re fools. I’m gonna go hard; if you don’t, you get smashed.”

Ms Layt — who played rugby league for South Sydney in her 20s before undergoing a sex change at 30 — will compete in touch football, indoor cricket and athletics events at the carnival for old boys who graduated in 1983 and 1984 from some of the state’s top private schools.

While she has attended reunions at Joey’s, she has not seen her former rugby ­rivals since she left school.

[Photo: Kyle Layt running for Joeys.]

“Some of them might be surprised that I’m now a woman but I’m out and proud,” Ms Layt said.

She said she knew she was female at the age of five.

She spent years struggling with her identity, dating men and women, before marrying in 1989, aged 24. The marriage lasted just two years and collapsed in 1991.

“I threw myself into sport, playing proper rugby and sprinting and athletics to try to belong,” Ms Layt said.

“I was always an outsider but with sport I could pretend. I was good and people wanted me on their teams.”

[Photo: Competing with UTS Norths women's relay team.]

[Photo: Caroline Layt teaching a group fitness classes.]

Ms Layt changed her name by deed poll to Caroline in 1995 and spent three years transitioning, taking hormone pills and undergoing electrolysis treatments to zap hair from her face.

Living in conservative Camden at the time, passers-by gawped in the street but she said she felt liberated.

“My mind and my body were finally at one.”

She underwent surgery in 1998 and focused on sport, representing NSW in women’s rugby league and Australia at the World Masters in women’s sprinting.

Now Ms Layt said she’s ready to return to the sporting fields of her youth.


Copyright 2016 News Corp

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