Maven Maurer never set out to make history as the first former player — in the CFL or NFL — to publicly come out as transgender.
She simply wanted to stop hiding — stop pretending — and finally be herself.
“I played 13 seasons in the CFL and have these accolades,” says Maurer, who was a guest on the Diversity is Strength Conversations podcast — presented by Kyndryl and powered by SiriusXM in the midst of Pride Month. “But it left me unfulfilled, and I had to do a lot of work to figure out why that was.”
Long-time CFL fans might best remember Maurer — known as Mike in her playing days — as a ferocious fullback who made stops in Saskatchewan, BC, Ottawa and Edmonton.
She dominated on special teams and made regular appearances on the nightly highlight reels with devastating open-field tackles.
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A two-time Grey Cup champion, Maurer was the Most Valuable Canadian in the 2005 Grey Cup and is currently ranked ninth with 168 career tackles on special teams.
Off the field, she brawled in mixed martial arts (I still remember covering one of her professional bouts and the blood that splattered from the ring onto my laptop.) And before joining the CFL, she had served in the Canadian Armed Forces and later trained as a firefighter and EMT.
“That was all me upping the ante — always doing something even more hyper-masculine and hyper-macho,” said Maurer, who now works as a train conductor and lives in the mountain postcard of Jasper, Alberta. “I was literally like Goldilocks, trying on different outfits, different roles, different costumes.”
None of them fit until about five years ago when — through counselling, meditation and self-reflection — she finally looked back at where it all began.
“Childhood memories came flooding out,” she said. “Playing with the girls, sounding like the girls, and laughing like the girls, and feeling like this pure euphoria.”
Pure euphoria, followed by total devastation.
“I remember the boys catching me and making fun of me,” she said. “I remember how that made me feel, and going back home and changing my name from Michael to Mike, so that I wouldn’t be called Michelle.
“I remember having that conversation with my mom and having that feeling like `I’ll never be as happy as I once was.’”
So Maurer set out to convince the world that she was strong, brave and macho — everything she thought a “real” man was supposed to be.
“I turned myself into this mean, snarling, `You’re not gonna bully me’ person — like you wouldn’t dare,” she said. “It was a character that I created, because of my traumas, because of my being bullied and being an outcast and being excluded.”
Maven Maurer (right) was a guest in the Pride Month edition of Diversity is Strength Conversations presented by Kyndryl and powered by SiriusXM. (David Friedrich/BCLions.com)
In early 2020, Maurer realized she needed to make changes. She told her wife first — a conversation filled with honesty, tears and pain.
Throughout the next 18 months, she worked in therapy on formulating a new game plan for the second half of life.
“I had lived 45 or 46 years as a man — or I tried to — and I was miserable and unhealthy,” she says. “I decided that the only way I could live fully and authentically was through medically transitioning.”
In 2022, she started on hormone replacement therapy and underwent gender-affirming surgery earlier this year.
“The difference is mind blowing in my mental health,” she said. ”I always followed strong female characters like Wonder Woman and Red Sonja and Xena — characters like that, right? Secretly, I just really adored them.”
Much to her delight, Maurer is now known as Maven in the CFL record book.
“They actually reached out and asked how I wanted it reflected,” she said. “I’m okay with it saying maybe formerly Mike or something — in case some people don’t know — but I prefer it says Maven.
“They were super respectful with how I wanted to be addressed.”
In 152 career games, the two-time Grey Cup champion amassed 758 all-purpose yards and four touchdowns.
But in the end, Maurer hopes the biggest impact of her career comes from helping others embrace their own paths — even when some don’t understand and others disapprove.
“We’re all the lead in our own movie that is our life,” she said. “We’re the lead actor/actress. Does the lead in a Hollywood movie really care what an extra in their movie thinks of them? Probably not.
“I try not to take things personally. It’s not always easy, but I do my best.”