personal softball glove with her name written on it before practice in Bokobá, Yucatán, Mexico on October 14, 2023. Oxté is the oldest player of the team. “At first, men treated us like clowns dressed in huipil, but they realize now that they must show us respect and never discriminate against us for expressing the power of women and our culture,” she says. The Amazonas of Yaxunah is an indigenous women’s softball team from the small Maya community of Yaxunah in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. The team of 26 players, aged 13 to 62, was formed in 2019. The Amazonas have become famous in Mexico for playing barefoot and wearing traditional Mayan dresses known as “huipiles”, but also for defying gender inequality. Playing sports isn’t considered part of a woman’s life in traditional Maya culture but they have found empowerment through sport. The Amazonas have travelled around the country to compete against established teams, even playing in the Kukulcán Alamo Park stadium in Mérida, home of Major League side, Los Leones de Yucatán. They started off with little more than a makeshift bat carved from a piece of wood and a single borrowed baseball. But now they are invited across the country to entertain crowds filled with their growing local and international fan base, sometimes numbering in the thousands. The Amazonas of Yaxunah won their first ever game abroad with a historical victory of 22-3 against The Falcons from Phoenix University on 19 September 2023. Photograph by Bénédicte Desrus