Cat Long loved soccer—and they were good at it, too. After starring at Fort Collins’ Rocky Mountain High School, in 2005 Long was recruited to play at a Division I university on the East Coast, where they became a starter on the women’s team. During their sophomore year, however, they say they were sexually assaulted by a member of the men’s side.

The incident pushed Long to transfer to the University of Colorado Boulder and ended their collegiate soccer career. They tried rec leagues, but the men on Long’s teams rarely passed to them—or any female-presenting player. Fed up with the toxic masculinity, they called Alayna Shaw, a childhood friend who, like Long, had also since come out as queer. “ ‘I want to play soccer. I love playing soccer with you,’ ” Long told her. “ ‘Let’s start a team.’ ”

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The Lipstick Lovers played their first game in early 2024. What began as a single rec team for queer, nonbinary, and trans players in and around Denver has expanded into six outdoor and eight indoor squads. They formed their own league, also called Lipstick Lovers, later in the year. “Most of the time, we’re dancing around or yelling or playing on each other’s teams,” Long says, “and it’s so much fun.”

The sense of connection extends off the field, too. The Lipstick Lovers hosted a roller-skating night to kick off Pride month in June, and players regularly meet up for dinner post-game. Like Long, many have had traumatic experiences and found the league only after playing on teams on which they felt isolated as the only queer person or person of color. “Those [wounds] are clearly still there, but everything else that we’re creating here is bigger than that,” Long says. “That’s what’s been so beautiful about it.”