SANT FELIU DE LLOBREGAT, Spain - A soccer team consisting entirely of transgender men has made its debut in a regional league in Spain, overcoming administrative challenges and prejudice to become the first all-trans squad to achieve federated status in Europe.

The team, named Fenix FC after the mythical bird symbolising rebirth, played some friendlies and seven-a-side games last season but now competes in the fifth tier in the northwestern region of Catalonia after being incorporated into a local club in the Barcelona suburb of Sant Feliu de Llobregat.

Spain passed a pioneering trans rights bill last year designed to make it easier to change a person's legal gender identity. But intolerance persists, with a record 302 cases of discrimination or violence against LGBT people in Catalonia in 2023, a quarter of which targeted transgender victims, according to data compiled by the region's Observatory against LGBTphobia.

Hugo Martinez, 24, told Reuters he faced abuse when he began transitioning with gender-affirming hormone therapy and was forced to leave the women's soccer team in which he had played.

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