Finding an accessible and accepting sport

Posted Wed 16th Apr 2025 at 12:33
by Oliver Waite

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I fell to my knees every other step that I took, directly onto a cold hard floor in a museum in York. Enough was enough and my partner persuaded me to borrow a wheelchair. I was reluctant, yet using it gave me less pain, reduced my anxiety and meant I could enjoy the museum more.

You might wonder why I am opening this post about Tourette’s and sport with a story about the first time I used a wheelchair. Well Tourette’s is the reason I am a full-time wheelchair user and have been for around a decade. And the sport is the amazing sport of wheelchair rugby league.

Becoming a wheelchair user wasn’t an easy time in my life. I went to my GP and asked for a referral to wheelchair services, she literally shouted no at me and even told me to stay indoors if I couldn’t control my leg tics. So for around ten months I was pretty much house bound, crawling around my flat. I was gifted a standard off the shelf wheelchair, and it changed my life. I now have an active user lightweight manual wheelchair.

I am a nonbinary trans man and am also nonverbal. I use a speech device full time to communicate due to a combination of Tourette’s – including constant vocal tics, autism and the schizophrenic part of my schizoaffective. All this combined meant that finding a sport was incredibly difficult.

Sport has always been quite an important part of my life, with football, badminton and A level physical education. However, now finding a sport seemed impossible. Yet randomly catching the wheelchair part of the rugby league World Cup gave me another option to research.

So I did that, my research told me that other trans people played and were accepted, plus the sport was open to both disabled and non disabled players. So I got on the list to hear about when Salford Red Devils would start their wheelchair team. So I was there in the very first session.

My Tourette’s severely affects all aspects and areas of my life. I have constant motor and vocal tics. Whilst playing doesn’t stop my tics, it can very slightly reduce them. Playing wheelchair rugby league gives me a distraction from my Tourette’s, alongside my severe mental illnesses. I’ve had tic attacks whilst playing and have had to stop playing for times when motor tics were affecting my ability to play.

Wheelchair rugby league is an inclusive sport, and my coaches and teammates are incredibly supportive and welcoming. I feel lucky and privileged to play wheelchair rugby league for Salford Red Devils.

Sometimes we do joke about my tics or people will laugh at a particularly funny tic, which I often laugh at too. But I know it’s them laughing at the tic not at me. They are also so aware of how much Tourette’s affects my daily life and the severity of it.  

Sport is something I have always loved, but becoming a wheelchair user due to Tourette’s, alongside being transgender, I thought I’d not find a sport that I would be able to play. Wheelchair rugby league is for all genders, and it is for disabled and nondisabled players. I am so incredibly grateful to have found this sport, and to be part of such an accepting and supportive team.

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