Mouncey was on the verge of creating history in late 2017 by becoming the first transgender athlete to join the fledgling AFLW competition.

While she had been rejected as “too slow” by Melbourne, she was told she was a certainty to be a top-end AFLW draft pick for either Western Bulldogs or Collingwood.

And she understood that she had “already been ticked off (to play) by the AFL” after a positive discussion earlier that year with AFL general manager of football Simon Lethlean, who subsequently resigned from the role mid-year.

But on the eve of the men’s AFL grand final in 2017, as Richmond was putting the finishing touches on its plan to dismantle Adelaide, the league was about to scuttle Mouncey’s own footy ambitions.

“It was 4pm Friday afternoon on a public holiday … if you are ever going to deliver bad news, that’s when to do it,” Mouncey told the Sacked podcast.

On the other end of the phone was Tanya Hosch, the AFL’s then general manager of inclusion and social policy, who had previously been supportive of Mouncey’s push to play.

“She (Hosch) rang me and said ‘We want to review your nomination for the draft’,” Mouncey recalled.

“I really feel for Tanya because I really think she was put up to do the dirty work and I really think she was advocating quite strongly for me to play.”

From that one call, Mouncey sensed others within AFL HQ didn’t want a transgender athlete to distract attention from season two of AFLW, footy’s bold leap into the future.

FIGHTING A LOSING BATTLE

Mouncey was determined to prosecute her case, and most importantly, wanted to be heard.

“I was pretty sure the decision had already been made but we had to give it our best (shot) … there was no policy in place by the AFL,” she said.

“Our argument was that I had already been playing (in VFLW and in Canberra) and if you are going to allow me to play in Canberra, it would make sense to allow me to play here.

“I offered to them, knowing there was no process, that this is the IOC process. And our logic was ‘if it’s good enough for the Olympics, then it is good enough for the AFL’.”

She sensed resistance from the outset, as a subcommittee set up to rule on her future began asking more and more questions.

In one meeting Mouncey was asked what her biggest strength was, to which she replied: ‘I grew up playing football and have a background in elite sports, so I know how to use my body like any girls who have come across from other sports.”

The AFL then asked what was her “biggest advantage”.

She added: “I am (over) six foot but I play pretty well on the ground …”

Then she was asked what her biggest skill was, to which she answered: ‘I’m good at contested marking’.

Eight years on from that meeting, Mouncey believes it was a set-up question.

“They wanted me to say I could take a contested mark, so they could say it’s all about my size (and strength),” she said.

She walked out of the meeting without a firm answer, but sensing her AFLW dreams were about to be crushed.

‘WE DON’T WANT A SIDESHOW’

Mouncey was walking through an Albury shopping centre when she got the shock of her life to see her face staring back at her from one of the televisions on display.

She knew it was bad news.

According to Mouncey, the AFL subcommittee had emailed her about 15 minutes before staging a press conference announcing the decision to exclude her.

She hadn’t seen the email, but saw images of herself on the television detailing how she had been banned from the AFLW.

“The AFL didn’t tell me before they held the press conference, or technically they did, but what happened is that they sent me an email … and the press conference was held 15 minutes later.

“I just didn’t see the email.

“I actually found out through the media. I was walking through a shopping centre in Albury and it came up on the TV and I was like: ‘Oh cool, all right, I’m not going to play … thanks guys.’ And that was pretty much it.”

The AFL subcommittee determined that Mouncey would have had an unreasonable physical advantage over her opponents, and banned her as a result.

Hosch said at the time: “We acknowledge Hannah’s openness and co-operation. She has contributed to a process which will substantially inform the development of the AFL’s transgender policy and procedure for future players at the elite level.”

Asked on the Sacked podcast for the reasoning the AFL gave her for reaching their decision, Mouncey says she is still unclear about it now.

“I never actually received it,” she said.

Although the AFL has strongly denied it, Mouncey remains convinced that the fact the new AFLW competition was in its infancy meant the league did not want any adverse publicity.

“I’ve been told by people who were close to it that the equal concern, or an even bigger concern was that AFL was (only) a year old … ‘we don’t want this sideshow destroying it’.

“And they were worried about the commercial viability and the commercial impact that my playing would have on sponsors and particularly at that time, they were using the AFLW as a tool to really encourage girls to play footy … junior footy, Auskick and stuff like that.

“And from what I’ve been told from people who are at the AFL but not involved in the decision … (they were) worried about the commercial side of it … ‘we’re worried about it impacting parents’ decisions to allow their daughter to play junior football or Auskick in case they play against a trans person … because if we set this precedent now, we have to then let every trans person play at every level’’.

‘THIS GIANT SECRET’

For as long as Mouncey could remember, she knew she was a girl.

But even as a five-year-old, she told no one about what she termed: ‘this giant secret”.

“You know boys are boys and girls are girls and you don’t cross that,” she recalled.

“I remember thinking I was a girl, but I knew that was impossible. You are not going to say anything because you think people are going to think you are crazy.”

The best way she could deal with her secret was to throw herself into sport, which proved a release for her.

Her competitive spirit and natural talent helped to stop her already damaged self-esteem from sliding into even more dangerous territory.

“I was always very interested in sport and I sort of threw myself into that from a young age … (to) build a lot of self esteem knowing I was that different,” she said.

“I didn’t feel particularly good about myself. I couldn’t put into words what it was. I didn’t know what trans people were until I was in my 20s.

“I grew up playing cricket and we lived in Sydney, so I had to play soccer. I wanted to play rugby league but mum hates it. We moved to Albury when I was about 10 or 11, and I started playing football. I wasn’t particularly great at football to begin with because I was so far behind everyone else.

“Cricket was my thing (initially) … but over time I got better at football.”

Mouncey added: “It was just this giant secret, I was terrified anyone would find out … so I moved to Canberra when I was 18. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I left school and as it turned out, I actually got a job working for the AFL, and the irony is not lost.”

In time, she would find her first real sport calling and something even more important – she was about to find her identity.

THE SPRINGER STIGMA

Mouncey had never really heard the term transgender until she was well into her 20s, with the conversation taking shape after Caitlyn Jenner revealed her transition in 2015 on the front cover of Vanity Fair.

Before that, the only time she had seen anything resembling trans issues came from the “freak show” that was the Jerry Springer Show.

“No one, even a decade ago, knew what transgender meant,” she said.

“It wasn’t something out there in the conversation until Caitlyn Jenner went through her transition.

“That was the first time anyone got exposure to it in the mainstream, and initially there was a surge of support for trans people.

“I know growing up I didn’t know the term … the only time you would see something that was remotely similar to even touching on trans issues was on Jerry Springer and usually that was not particularly flattering. And it also wasn’t trans people … it was the freak show coming out and they were trying to profit off people who were really quite troubled.”

Mouncey feared what might happen to her if she revealed she wanted to be a woman, knowing the pain of trying to “navigate who you are”.

“You are terrified, absolutely terrified of being rejected and the self-esteem issues … you are brought up thinking ‘this isn’t normal’.

“You think you are a monster, and a freak, and the conversations being had in the media only served to propagate that now.”

‘THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL THING IN AUSTRALIAN SPORT’

Mouncey attended the Sydney Olympics handball competition as a wide-eyed kid in 2000, sparking an interest that would one day see her represent her country.

Almost a decade later she spotted a group of handball players practising at her local gym and she decided to take the sport on.

“I was 19, really fit, young and keen and I walked into the best environment I possibly could,” she said.

Mouncey went on to play for the men’s handball team in the national competition and later in the Australian team.

She played in her first world championships in 2013, overcoming the nerves of her first game against Hungary to score four goals in the next clash with Spain in Madrid.

But just as she had established herself in the Australian men’s team, Mouncey’s “giant secret” left her “in a mess”, particularly at an Olympic qualifying event in Qatar in 2015.

By that stage, she had already spoken to doctors about transitioning, but she had left “the drugs” that eliminate testosterone in her car for months.

“By the time I got to 2015, I was a mess. I was broken.”

As she was sitting around a pool in the hotel in Qatar she decided she needed to tell her mother that she wanted to be a woman.

“I shot off this message, which I thought was pretty concise and to the point,” she said.

“I re-read it later on, and it was the most rambling piece of s— … you’ve ever seen.

“The message got through and she understood it, and she was really supportive.”

She felt emboldened to tell the rest of her family – her father and brothers – when she arrived home for a few days break in Perth.

She planned to send an initial message telling them that she needed to inform them of someone important. Then the follow-up message offered the full explainer.

When it came to informing her dad, Mouncey sent the follow-up message by mistake instead of the initial message.

“I went ‘Oh F—, oh no!’ So I turned my phone off, went and got an ice-cream and went to see AC/DC (in concert) and turned my phone back on six hours later,” she said.

“Dad ended up being great. I have never had a bad response from anyone that matters.”

Mouncey started hormone therapy in November 2015, and started publicly identifying as a female in May the following year.

In time, she went from the Australian men’s handball team to the women’s handball team in 2018, and also took on football for a period of time, playing with Ainslie in Canberra and also with Darebin in the VFLW.

She played with Darebin in 2018, the year after being banned from the AFLW draft, and couldn’t believe the support she received from her teammates, including some of those who were also playing AFLW.

“I walked in, everyone knew who I was … I didn’t know anyone, and I was the most controversial thing in Australian sport at that point,” she said.

Now 35, Mouncey is still hopeful of representing Australia in the women’s handball team at the 2028 LA Olympics, though she knows she could have her dreams dashed with the participation of transgender athletes under a huge cloud.

“The fight is hard. What makes me good as an athlete is also the thing that’s probably my downfall outside of that, and that is I can’t walk away from a fight.”