Leon Reuterström (born 30 November 1996) is a Swedish former

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey in North America) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an Ice rink, ice skating rink with Ice hockey rink, lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. Tw ...

goaltender In ice hockey, the goaltender (commonly referred to as goalie or netminder) is the player responsible for preventing the hockey puck from entering their own team's net, thus preventing the opposing team from scoring. The goaltender mostly plays ...

and advocate for

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

inclusion in sports. From 2012 to 2018, he played for

Leksands IF Dam Leksands Idrottsförening, abbreviated Leksands IF or LIF, is a semi-professional ice hockey team in the Swedish Women's Hockey League (SDHL). They play in Leksand, a town in the western-central Swedish province of Dalarna, at Tegera Arena. Un ...

in the

Swedish Women's Hockey League The Swedish Women's Hockey League (), abbreviated SDHL, is the elite league for women's ice hockey in Sweden. It was established in 2007 as the by the Swedish Ice Hockey Association and was renamed prior to the 2016–17 season. The league has ...

(SDHL; previously called Riksserien), the top flight of Swedish women's hockey, before coming out to the public as a

transgender man A trans man or transgender man is a man who was assigned female at birth. Trans men have a male gender identity, and many trans men undergo medical and social transition to alter their appearance in a way that aligns with their gender identit ...

and retiring to pursue his medical transition.

Playing career

Reuterström began his career with

Almtuna IS Almtuna Idrottssällskap, commonly known as Almtuna IS, is a Swedish ice hockey club based in Uppsala and is currently playing in HockeyAllsvenskan, the second highest league of ice hockey in Sweden. The team maintained its place in the Allsvensk ...

of the Division I (renamed Damettan in 2015) and women's ice hockey AllEttan (). In 2012, he signed with Leksands IF, splitting the 2012–13 season between the team's top Riksserien side and the B-side playing in Damettan. He established himself fully as a top-side goaltender the next season, and would take over as Leksands' starting goalie in 2015. In 2018, he publicly came out as a transgender man and announced his retirement from the SDHL in order to pursue his medical transition, as testosterone hormone replacement therapy conflicts with anti-doping rules in the sport. Since his retirement, he has been outspoken about the difficulties trans people face in sports. In 2020, he returned to the ice for the first time in two years to participate in a charity match.

International

Rueterström represented Sweden at the

2014 IIHF World Women's U18 Championship The 2014 IIHF U18 Women's World Championships was the seventh IIHF U18 Women's World Championship. Organized by the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), the ice hockey tournament was played at two rinks of the Jégpalota (; called 'Icecent ...

, playing one game and posting a .941 save percentage.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Reuterström, Leon Leksands IF players 1996 births Living people LGBTQ ice hockey players Transgender sportsmen Swedish LGBTQ sportspeople Swedish transgender men Swedish ice hockey goaltenders Ice hockey people from Uppsala 21st-century Swedish LGBTQ people