Truffy Maginnis was sitting at a bus stop in Fremantle in 1981 when her life changed forever.
Born and raised in Northern Ireland at the height of the Troubles, Maginnis always suspected the world had something different in store for her.
She'd felt that way ever since she was young, particularly after falling madly in love with Chrissy, a girl who was twice her age.
However — surrounded by a strict, devout Catholic family, at a time when religion was tangled up in the decades-long conflict sweeping across the country — Maginnis knew she had to keep that part of herself hidden.
In 1978, when she was old enough to support herself, she relocated to London, lured by the city's cosmopolitanism, its feminist activism and its blossoming LGBTQIA+ community.
She started going to bars and clubs, community halls and social gatherings, trying to meet women who were just like her.
As soon as she opened her mouth, though, her tumbling, curling accent would give away where she was from and many women would hesitate to engage or avoid her entirely.
But there was one group who didn't care: a brassy band of loud Australians she met out in town one rollicking night.
They immediately took Maginnis under their wing, inviting her to visit them back home in Western Australia.
That's how she ended up sitting at a Fremantle bus stop on a warm morning in 1981.
Because that's when a car pulled up right in front of her, and Pat — a well-known lesbian from Perth — rolled down the window.
"You waiting for a bus?" Pat asked, leaning casually over the frame of the door.
"Yes," Maginnis replied.
Pat looked up and down the road: "They don't come 'round here," she said.
She glanced back at the pale Irishwoman sitting quietly on the metal seat.
"Where do you want to go? We'll give you a lift."
After Maginnis shuffled into the car, Pat asked: "Are you here for the women's festival?"
"No, but I've seen the posters."
"Well, we'll take you there."
It was the chance encounter that set her life on a totally different course.
"Suddenly, being Irish was a boon," Maginnis, now in her mid-60s, told ABC.
"Being Irish in Australia, everybody loved me.
"And because Pat brought me in — and she was an important person in the lesbian community in Perth — I was 'in' from then. I just soared.
"It was extraordinary, that sliding-doors moment. If I hadn't been at that bus stop, I wouldn't have met these women, and we wouldn't have started the Armpits."
Creating a new home, half a world away
Alongside other women, football was the other love of Maginnis' young life.
Growing up, girls couldn't play organised football in Northern Ireland. Instead, they were ushered into hockey and camogie (an all-women version of hurling), which were deemed more suitable sports for "ladies".
Maginnis never gave up, though. She played football on her own in local parks or with her brothers and all the village lads on weekends. She'd stay outside until the sky grew dark and slept with the scuffed ball in her arms at night.
It wasn't until she left Perth for Adelaide in her mid-20s and a friend, Anne Francis, asked if she wanted to start a team, that Maginnis realised women could actually play football in organised competitions.
"We met at the Exeter pub," Maginnis recalled. "When we got there, Anne had already gone to the association and got all the paperwork. For me, it was so exciting. I already knew some of the women there, but others were unknown to me.
"In those days, Anne would have identified as a 'lesbian feminist', and so wanted to play sport in a way that wasn't about having to be the best or having to win, but to be able to be safe as a lesbian playing in a sports team."
And so, the Adelaide Armpits — Australia's first LGBTQIA+ football club — was born.
"If you rocked up, you got a game," Maginnis said of the early years.
"You didn't have to be a good player. There was only me and one other woman who'd ever played football before, Roxy. So that's how it started.
"1982 was our first season, and we thought we'd just play for a couple of years and have a laugh and that'll be the end. But the Armpits actually went for over 30 years in South Australian competitions.
The Armpits developed a reputation almost immediately.
Their uniform was a mish-mash of shirts that they dyed themselves in various shades of purple.
Their team name was an allusion to the radical, separatist second-wave feminist movement flourishing across Australia in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
They didn't care about winning games and would applaud opposition teams for scoring against them.
There were no coaches, no captains and no hierarchies.
They were, as Maginnis described, "a bunch of ratbag lesbian feminists".
While they began as an all-lesbian team, they eventually welcomed any woman who wanted to join — some of whom had been struggling in secret with their own sexuality but had no space to be themselves.
"I certainly had conversations with women after they'd been in the team for a while who said, 'You know, I just felt like I'd come home when I came into the Armpits'," Maginnis said.
"That was the hope. When we met that day at the pub, that's what we talked about. We wanted this to be a place that women who identified as lesbians, or who didn't mind being assumed to be lesbians, could come and play.
"You don't have to be good to play sport. You just have to find somewhere where you'll be welcomed and can belong.
"From the beginning, it was an expression of lesbian culture in a different sort of way. It wasn't about playing pool at the pub or going to bars — those safe social spaces for lesbians at the time.
"This was something else. People were intrigued by us."
A Matildas connection
One of the women who eventually joined the Armpits was Jill Latimer, who represented the Matildas in the late 1980s.
Latimer played for the Adelaide University team alongside former national team vice-captain Moya Dodd, and like everybody else in South Australian football, knew who the Armpits were from the start.
Maginnis recalls a young, shy Latimer coming along to watch them play in the early days, hiding behind some nearby trees so she wouldn't be seen.
"She knew her sexuality, but it wasn't possible for her to be out," Maginnis said. "She'd come and watch us and think, 'Maybe this is possible for me.'
"That was definitely true," Latimer told ABC.
"I was out to my family at that stage, but nobody else. Only a few people that I knew and trusted who were the same.
"In those days, the Armpits did get a lot of abuse on the sidelines — and we did as well. People [were] saying, 'Girls shouldn't be playing soccer' and getting laughed at because they were lesbians.
"So, I think I was a bit afraid of that at first, as I was discovering more about my sexuality at that time.
"But I always wanted to play in their team. I was getting a bit burnt out where I was, so that was one of the reasons, plus knowing the women personally.
"And I did bring other players with me from Dynamo Uni over to the Armpits as well. I admired Truffy and what she was doing and really believed in it.
"That's what was so magical about the Armpits, especially for younger lesbians [who] were first coming out.
"Truffy created an environment where people were really supported in their identity. It changed people's lives, it really did."
Latimer joined the Armpits just after she reached the summit of the football pyramid: representing her state at the National Championships while also being called up to represent Australia at the 1987 Women's Invitational Tournament in Taiwan, the precursor to the pilot Women's World Cup in China the following year.
However, she said, had she not joined the Armpits when she did, her football career may not have lasted much longer.
"It brought back my love of football, that team," she said.
"I'd felt burnt out for a while and felt like I was either going to quit or needed to go to a club where I could actually just have fun. I'd lost the fun.
"I became a better person there. One of the things Truffy incorporated there was mutual respect, where we all had a voice and everybody was listened to.
"So it made me a better footballer, a stronger footballer, in every way."
The darker side of success
However, as the Armpits' reputation grew, so too did the abuse and discrimination — both on and off the field.
"In the early years, there were many occasions where we were subjected to some quite horrible verbal abuse from women in other teams, who were egged on by their supporters.
"A few times when we were physically abused, as well," Maginnis said.
"The tackles were awful. There was one club we played against and they were kicking six pints of blood out of us.
"We said afterwards, 'Let's not play them again' and forfeited all later games.
"I got king-hit in the back of the head once when the referee was looking the other way.
"And because we did well with each other, because we were so overt with our sexuality, when the homophobia came up externally — from the association, when they twigged that we weren't going away — all the stereotypes came to the fore: lesbians as predators, is it safe to send young girls out to play the Armpits?
"Those conversations were happening in the South Australian Women's Soccer Association.
Despite it all, the Armpits thrived. They won their division, twice, and even got promoted to the state's top-tier competition, only for their application to be knocked back by the association, who claimed they wanted "even numbers" in each league.
For Latimer, there were silver-linings to the discrimination they experienced, be it on the sidelines or from decision-makers above: They became stronger players, driven by the desire to prove themselves to everybody who doubted or questioned them.
"It made me want to play harder," she said. "We would still get people making fun of us, but that made me a stronger footballer.
"It lifted the club, as well, because it brought out the best in us rather than making us drop our heads. We spoke with our feet.
"We became a better team because of it. Eventually, we were able to block out the noise and just play football."
The other legacies of the Adelaide Armpits
These days, the Armpits are no more.
After 33 years, they officially folded in 2015 and donated much of their memorabilia to the State Library of South Australia.
While the club may no longer exist, their legacy has been carried on by other LGBTQIA+ clubs that have popped up around the country, including the Flying Bats, the Sydney Rangers and the Melbourne Rovers, all of which contest the annual Justin Fashanu and Julie Murray Cups.
The folding of the Armpits also hasn't stopped Maginnis from continuing to create a safer and more inclusive world for queer people, going on to work at the Bfriend LGBTQIA+ peer support service at Uniting Care Wesley, Adelaide, as well as cancer care services and support networks to help prevent violence against women.
She still participates in football when she can, watching the celebration around A-Leagues club Adelaide United hosting their inaugural Pride Round with joy earlier this year, as well as the many Matildas who are now out and proud about their sexuality — although it's no substitute for being out there on the wide, open field herself.
"I think any opportunity to have people go, 'What does Pride Round mean?' and have that conversation will make a difference somewhere to somebody," she said.
"The ones who the conversation matters most to are those who are still trying to make sense of what it means to be attracted to someone of the same gender, or to be non-binary or transgender, or to have any sense that they are not heterosexual.
"Those things can only be of help, whether it's Pride Round in football, whether it's the opportunity to see gay men and lesbians depicted in the media in a really ordinary way that takes away the awful stereotypes.
"For me, I'll very happily support pride rounds and have conversations with people [who] want to know what it's about.
"We had a bit of traditional success, but the real success was how we kept going. And we kept ourselves safe and looked out for each other and had a lot of fun.
"For me, that's the thing that gives me strength and makes the world a joyful place to live in, because we matter to each other. We find each other and we gather each other up and keep ourselves and each other safe. That's what it's all about."
