Dani Laidley reveals: 'In the same breath, I both loved and hated footy'

Danielle Laidley's earliest memory of her "secret" is when she was six-years-old.

It's the first time she experimented with nail polish - "and as soon as I put it on, I felt calmness, peace ... and I felt safe".

But it was the early 1970s and young Danielle (birth name Dean Laidley) was enduring a "not-so-great upbringing" in Perth's working class suburbs.

"I didn't know what it was," reflects the 57-year-old former AFL player, coach and now transgender advocate.

"I just knew I wanted to go back to that place."

Dani would get into footy at the age of seven and realised, from a young age, "I was pretty good at it".

Indeed, she was a gifted athlete and excelled at many sports but it was a "girls played netball, boys played footy" kind of era.

As she grew up, she continued to experiment behind closed doors ... seeking that "warm, safe space to be myself".

It would take another 45 years before Danielle would be officially diagnosed with Gender Dysphoria.

"Little Danielle", as she terms it now, would have days where she was quiet and days where she demanded attention.

"As that grew, I was able to use football to balance out my life," Dani says.

"It was my first form of self-sabotage - in a positive way."

Dani played 151 AFL matches across a 10-year career with the Eagles and North Melbourne, winning a premiership with the latter in 1996.

Her brutal competitiveness on the field earned her the nickname "The Junkyard Dog".

She would become one of the youngest senior coaches at 36, leading North Melbourne for 149 games across seven seasons from 2003 to 2009.

But for the better part of that illustrious career - in a hyper-masculine sporting environment - Dani lived a secret double life.

From the boy growing up in the backblocks of Perth to a teenager and young man playing AFL - and as a married father of three - Dani knew she was female.

She dabbled with dressing up, dodging rumours, discovery and domestic destruction.

She masked it with ferocious footy playing, "becoming a workaholic" and, later, drug addiction.

On Friday, June 21, Dani and her partner Donna Leckie will be special guests of the Albury-Wodonga Winter Solstice, to share her remarkable story and add their voices to the quest for acceptance of gender diversity.

Dani and Donna spoke candidly with ACM's Border Mail ahead of their visit to the annual event that shines a light into the darkness and pain of suicide and mental ill-health.

Dani knows that dark journey all too well.

She spent the best part of five decades battling her Gender Dysphoria - the distress a person feels when their gender identity doesn't match their physical body.

Back then she didn't have a name for it - she just knew it couldn't come out of the closet.

Ironically, footy was a safe space.

"Football was what I did," Dani explains.

"In the same breath I both loved and hated it.

"It was a passion; I loved playing it, coaching it ... and I was very lucky to be involved with it for so many years.

"But at times I thought it was stopping me being me."

Dani married and had children "very young".

Given her own broken background, Dani made "a deliberate choice" to preserve a loving family environment for her two daughters and son.

"Whatever was going to happen ... was going to happen after they grew up," she says.

It wasn't until 2019, at the age of 52, that Dani sought professional advice and had a name for what she was experiencing.

It was "a weight lifted off my shoulders", she reflects of the diagnosis.

"I've learned you can't out-run gender dysphoria."

Just as she was starting to plan what life might look like, the decision was "taken away from me".

The secret she had carried for years was cruelly exposed in May 2020.

Victorian police officers leaked photos of Dani in a dress, wig and make-up after she was arrested for stalking a former partner, among other offences.

Battling a drug addiction and spiralling mental health issues, Dani was publicly outed as a transgender woman.

The vast majority of people who knew her had no idea.

In an interview published by Fox Sports in 2022 ahead of the release of her memoir Don't Look Away, Dani describes feeling "like an animal in a zoo enclosure" during the arrest:

Laidley describes weeping as she is strip-searched by both a female and a male officer: "Because I'm transgender, the rest of the search happens in two parts ... I feel as degraded as can be".

The shameful violation of her privacy would have crippling consequences - not only for Dani but her family and friends.

"The trauma caused by that ... some relationships have taken a lot of work to restore," she says sadly.

She would later receive a confidential financial settlement from Victoria Police.

Less than a month before she was shockingly outed and at the end of an ice-fuelled bender, Dani tried to take her life.

She was saved only by her house-mate who broke into her locked Melbourne bedroom to save her.

It wasn't Dani's first attempt at self-harm; in 2015 she took an overdose of sleeping tablets.

Dani told Fox Sports she had never taken an illicit drug until she was 48:

In retiring from footy after falling out of her marriage to the mother of her three children, all while wrestling gender dysphoria, she got lost - and a family tendency towards addiction caught up.

But in so much lost, someone was found.

Donna Leckie.

The childhood sweetheart who used to play kiss chasey with Dani in the playground would re-enter her life when she was at her lowest point.

"It was always Dani," Donna admits.

"Even from a little kid she was so charismatic - and also a bit secluded ... there was this air of intrigue and mystery about her."

Donna says their relationship was "like sliding doors our whole life".

But Dani is the person she has always loved and the pair are now proud - and protective - life partners.

"Dani's just always got me in the feels - from a very young age," Donna admits.

"She's also great fun and, while we do a lot of work in a serious field, when we're hanging out with the kids and grand-children we're just a pair of dags."

It was Donna who remained staunchly by Dani's side as she fought to emerge from the dark, destructive period of her life.

"Even in rehabilitation I had thoughts of self-harm," Dani admits.

The couple, who now live in Perth, would bunker down in Melbourne as pre-COVID restrictions rolled in.

Dani was on suicide watch and Donna made meticulous plans with her psychologist to ensure their home was safe.

"It was gut-wrenching at times," Donna reflects, admitting there were many sleepless nights.

"But we got through it with the counsel of Dani's close friends, who have now become my friends."

That and weekly sessions with Dani's psychologist would save her life.

It was about this time, they began filming for a documentary that would give Dani the opportunity to "tell my story in my own words".

The film, Danielle Laidley: Two Tribes, includes some "pretty tough to watch" diary-cam footage of that time.

It also details the moment in 2019 when Dani accidentally sends photos of herself in full make-up and wig to her children via Snapchat.

She is still trying to restore the relationship with her two daughters.

Screening on Stan, the documentary is an unflinching account of Dani's personal journey as a closeted transgender woman in the AFL, her arrest, and how she has found her true self.

It's a story of her struggle to find a place within the LGBTQIA+ community and rebuild relationships with her family "that will provide a story of hope and inspiration for queer sportspeople, as well as trans and gender diverse people worldwide".

It's a story of two tribes - the AFL community and the transgender community.

"This story won't pull any punches; you'll see me at my lowest points and at my highest, surrounded by those whom I care about most who stood by me through it all," she said ahead of the launch in 2023.

"My truth is becoming an increasingly common one in today's society, and highlights the need for greater inclusivity, understanding and acceptance."

Together Dani and Donna have become proud and vocal advocates for the transgender community; pressing the need for greater education, awareness and support around gender diversity.

It has included working with the police force to provide training in how to interact with the transgender community.

"You can't be what you can't see," Dani states.

"We are all human, we all want to be loved and accepted.

"And if you walk past poor behaviours then you are just as bad as the person saying or doing it!"

They are acutely aware of the statistics showing LGBTQIA+ people have higher rates of mental ill-health and suicide than the general population in Australia, due to discrimination and stigma.

Dani says more work needs to be done in supporting a transgender person to feel accepted and connected to their family and local community.

"Whether it's home, school, the workplace or a sporting club, if the support is there a person's self-esteem will be high and they can live a life without as many barriers," she explains.

"If they are judged, isolated and stigmatised, their mental health will suffer and they are more likely to attempt suicide, to self-harm and experience things like homelessness."

Dani insists there are now "plenty of resources" available that can provide medical, counselling and other information for families, clubs and even the corporate world.

"The reality is ... and what I've found is that it's critical for families and friends to transition with us," she says.

"I was robbed of that opportunity."

The years between what Dani calls "phase one" of her life and "phase two" have been filled with heartache, humiliation - and hope.

Time has healed many wounds.

She has a lot of memorabilia and pictures from her footy days and has even put some of it back out on show.

"For a few years, I took it all down off the walls; I didn't want it in my face," Dani admits.

"But in counselling I was able to come up with (the fact) I should be very proud of what I did and what I achieved. It was a significant part of my life."

However she still recoils from that old footy nickname.

"I garnered this reputation that was even further removed from who I really was," she admits of her on-field ferocity.

"It was like a double-edged sword."

Overwhelmingly, Dani and Donna say they have been buoyed by the support and acceptance from the AFL.

From gala award nights in dazzling dresses to standing on the grounds of Marvel Stadium for a North Melbourne vs West Coast Eagles game last year after running into a hostile anti-transgender protest, "we have felt the love from our footy tribe".

"It hasn't been the easiest path, but I've made some treasured memories along the way, and met some incredible people," Dani has said of her journey.

Asked if there's one person she's admired the most through it all, the answer may come as a surprise.

"I take a little bit of a lot of people," Dani begins.

"But if there's one person in my life I've looked up to, it's my grandmother Olive May.

"She died in 2016 at the age of 95, outlasting three husbands, who all suffered the Laidley disease of addiction.

"She brought me up and showed me love, care and empathy and I always think 'What would Nan do?'"

Now sporting May as her middle name, Dani's firmly focused on being her authentic self.

"I try to be the best person I can be," she says.

"If I do that, if I can be a good partner, a good parent and a good advocate, then I can live my life the way I want to be!"