Philly Roller Derby league turns 20 – here’s how the sport skated its way to feminism, anti-racism and queer liberation

Early members of Philly’s roller derby league face off in a match circa 2005-2006. Jeff Fusco/The Conversation U.S., CC BY-NC-SA

For 20 years, Philly Roller Derby skaters, who go by names like Wooly Slammoth, TrailBlazeHer and Reba Smackentire, have jammed and blocked their way around oval skating rinks in the spirit of feminism, anti-racism, body positivity and queer liberation.

When the Philly league joined the Women’s Flat Track Derby Association in 2005, it was one of the first, following the Texas Rollergirls in Austin and leagues in Portland, Oregon; Chicago; New York; and other cities. The WFTDA, which governs flat-track roller derby, had formed just one year prior with a goal of “revolutioniz[ing] the role of women in sports.”

Primarily organized by women, the association takes an explicitly feminist position and welcomes anyone who is of a “marginalized gender.” This includes cisgender women as well as all transgender, intersex and two-spirit individuals. Intersex people have chromosomes and/or reproductive organs that do not fit into a binary male or female classification, while two-spirit refers to members of Indigenous cultures who identify as having both a masculine and feminine spirit.

I’m a kinesiology professor who studies philosophic and historical perspectives of sport – especially women’s sport. I have a particular fondness for roller derby, which started in the U.S. in 1935.

In some ways, roller derby’s reinvention as a revolutionary feminist sport in the 21st century isn’t that surprising. After all, women have been included as, at minimum, equal participants since the sport’s beginning.

The Passyunk Punks, in red, compete against the Germantown Loose Cannons, in blue, during the 2024 home team season.
@winterrosefoto/Philly Roller Derby, CC BY-NC-SA

Feminist roots

Seeds of roller derby’s feminist roots can be traced to its earliest version: the Transcontinental Roller Derby.

This endurance-sport fad of the Great Depression featured pairs of skaters accumulating miles as they skated laps around a track, following imaginary routes across the country. American sportswriter Frank Deford perpetuated the apocryphal story of Leo Seltzer’s invention of roller derby. Seltzer, an entertainment entrepreneur and promoter of walkathons, supposedly scribbled the basics of the sport on a tablecloth at a Ricketts restaurant in Chicago in the spring of 1935.

Whatever the truth of that story, what is true is that in August 1935, spectators gathered in the air-conditioned Chicago Coliseum to watch 25 pairs of skaters set off to travel 3,000 miles – the approximate distance of a cross-country trek from New York to San Francisco – all while never leaving the city.

Seltzer organized the event, which featured man-woman duos skating thousands of laps around a banked track while the crowd followed their fictional cross-country progress on a large electronic map. More than a month after they started, Bernie McKay and Clarice Martin completed the race in 493 hours and 12 minutes.

Leo Seltzer took his show on the road, organizing Transcontinental Roller Derby events in cities like Cincinnati, New York, St. Louis, Indianapolis and Miami. In May 1937, roller derby made its way to the Philadelphia Arena on Market Street.

A 1937 article in the Mount Carmel Item newspaper describes the new sport of roller derby.
Mount Carmel Item, 1937

In all of those cities, skaters completed what the Chicago Tribune called an “imaginary cross-country dash”, sometimes covering up to 100 miles per day. Early on, the pairs skated for 10 to 12 hours daily. Eventually, skaters spent only the event hours on the track, usually starting at 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. and finishing at midnight or 1 a.m. Teams alternated skaters – women skated against women and men against men – in 15-minute turns. In some locations, cots were set up on the inside of the track, giving alternating skaters a place to rest.

Seltzer saw women as an untapped sports audience who could bolster the success of his endeavor. He courted women spectators through advertisements, selling “Ladies Day” tickets, and dispersing discounted tickets to businesses frequented by women customers.

Seltzer believed that women spectators would be drawn to women skaters. This, in part, drove him to ensure a place for women in the roller derby. Few opportunities for women existed in traditional sports at that time. When women did participate in sport, many had to deal with commentary about their appearance and a focus on their beauty rather than their athletic accomplishments.

This was the case with roller derby too. For example, one Chicago Tribune reporter wrote that a 1935 leader of the roller derby was “the blonde in the cerise tights, and a right pretty gal she is” – without ever mentioning her name.

Roller derby skater Yolanda Trevino of the Eastern Warriors falls to the ground under a board as a member of the Brooklyn Bombers skates past her during a match at the Philadelphia Arena in 1970.
Jack Tinney via Getty Images

Paying the price

Despite the participation of women since its beginning, roller derby has certainly not been a total bastion of feminist progress.

Even when challenging gender norms, women skaters were objectified. Their appearance was used to market the sport in promotional photographs. Skaters like Tiny McDowell, whose photo advertised the opening of roller derby to Indianapolis Star readers in 1937, posed in their uniforms, but without the tights and pads worn during the event.

Roller derby in the 1970s, ‘80s and ’90s featured strong, tough women skaters. But as communications professor Heidi Mau and I wrote in a chapter of “Sportswomen’s Apparel in the United States,” the uniforms during that era were typically tight with low-cut zippers. Organizers of roller derby – and its competitors like RollerGames and RollerJam – embraced stereotypical ideas about femininity and beauty and sexualized women skaters.

The inclusion of women also signaled to some that roller derby was not a legitimate sport – something that haunts it to this day.

Philly Roller Derby members skate in the 2024 Philly Pride parade.
Jon Dilks/Philly Roller Derby, CC BY-NC-SA

Historian Michella Marino, in her comprehensive history of the sport, says that women roller derby skaters “paid a price” for doing something subversive in challenging gender norms. That price, she writes, is that sports media relegated them to the level of “spectacle,” which led to the belief that the sport was illegitimate precisely because women competed on the same level as men.

Sports columnists in the 1930s emphasized that roller derby was a dramatic spectacle, calling it a “cat fight on wheels,” an “insane indoor sport” that was about “putting on a show.”

Women skaters today approach roller derby with a feminist, do-it-yourself attitude. The modern leagues were created by women who wanted to skate and didn’t want to wait for someone else to start a team. The Women’s Flat Track Derby Association now boasts over 400 leagues on six continents.

Today’s roller derby draws spectators of all types. Tickets typically go for about $15. Some audiences come for the Riot Grrrl, or feminist punk, personas of the skaters, and are rewarded with fast-paced, high-contact skating. Others see it as a cheap family outing, and leagues advertise themselves as family friendly. Some leagues now have co-ed youth leagues, like the Junior Brawlstars of the Philly Roller Derby.

Other leagues have branched out beyond women’s flat-track roller derby, like the Penn Jersey Roller Derby in Camden, New Jersey – also founded in 2005. Home to the Devils and Hooligans, Penn Jersey competes in flat and banked track versions of the sport and even includes a team competing in the Men’s Roller Derby Association.

Still, roller derby remains unabashedly feminist, a sport that encourages women to subvert gender norms while they skate to athletic success.

Colleen English does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.