Featured photo: Jerry Mander (left) faces off against Ballot Boxer (right) in a promotional photo for this Saturday’s GRAWL event. (photo by Becky VanderVeen)
It’s still a few weeks until Halloween, but this Saturday, Mel Umbarger will be dressed up as a giant uterus. Well, technically, as Lady Reproductive Justice, if you want to call her by her stage name.
“It’s Lady Liberty inspired,” Umbarger explains about her costume. “It’s got the scales of reproductive justice, and it’s a uterus with ovaries hanging down.”
The character is one that Umbarger has dressed up as before and is reprising for GRAWL’s Sweet Sixteen show this Saturday. GRAWL, or the Greensboro Arm Wrestling League, has been around since 2015 when a group of philanthropy-minded women decided to start a volunteer-run arm wrestling group. Founded by Rachel Scott, Amanda Lehmert Killian and Meagan Albert, the organization models itself after other female-oriented arm wrestling groups across the country and puts on shows to raise money for local nonprofits. This Saturday’s show — which takes place at Steel Hands Brewing — will raise money for Community Housing Solutions, a nonprofit that helps low-income homeowners repair their homes. The show will also be the group’s sixteenth show, hence the name.
“At the heart of it, it’s all about seeing a need in our community and then going out and finding a fun way to meet it,” explains Lehmert Killian, who says she’ll be retiring after this next show.
During 2020 and 2021, the group took a year off due to the pandemic and then hosted a virtual show. In 2022, they came back for their live, in-person events.
According to Lehmert Killian, this upcoming show is the largest one that the group has held to date with 12 wrestlers across three different teams. Some of the wrestlers include Smother Earth, Bobbie the Builder and Lady Liberator. Then, of course, there’s the heel — Jerry Mander.
“He’s kind of the sleazy operator,” explains Abby Karp, who will be wrestling for the first time as Ballot Boxer.
Karp, who has been on the organization’s leadership team for the last two years, says that she was drawn to the initiative because of its inclusive nature.
“It’s open to everyone who identifies as female or nonbinary, cisgender or transgender,” Karp says. “It’s a very strong philosophy of ‘you do you.’ It’s a nonjudgmental zone.”
That commitment to inclusivity is something that the founders made sure to prioritize when they started GRAWL, Lehmert Killian says.
“We know that Greensboro is a diverse city, but there’s not enough safe spaces for queer people,” Lehmert Killian says.
In addition to gender and sexual orientation diversity, the group welcomes people of different abilities, too. In the past, they’ve had disabled wrestlers, Lehmert Killian says.
“It organically became this very safe space,” Umbarger explains. “Every time we have an event, we have more people that are like, ‘I want to be a part of it.’”
Still, the future of the group is a bit unclear. With one of the founders, Lehmert Killian, retiring after this weekend, GRAWL will have to figure out what the organization will look like moving forward. But that can be a good thing, Lehmert Killian says.
“The fact that some of us have been around since the beginning means that fresh ideas should come in,” she says.
She hopes that GRAWL will continue to exist even if she’s no longer directly involved. Over the years, she says that she’s seen the way the events can help people come out of their shells. Plus, it’s been a fun way to bring the community together.
“A lot of people are isolated,” she says. “One of the things that GRAWL is, is just a place where you can go be yourself and do a fun thing and accomplish something as a group, and that’s powerful.”
For Umbarger, it’s been refreshing to have such an open, inviting space. At one of GRAWL’s events several years ago, she played Alexandra Spamilton and due to a tie, she had to compete in a lip sync battle. She sang a Bon Jovi song where she pretended to get shot through the heart as she pulled a red scarf out of her shirt.
“I’m getting to act like a fool,” Umbarger says. “I’m not normally like that, but something about GRAWL brings out the goofy and fun.”
And in a time when things can feel stressful and uncertainty colors people’s lives, putting on a silly costume to arm wrestle a giant uterus might just be the thing people need.
“I always say, ‘There’s a lady arm wrestler in you,’” Lehmert Killian laughs.
The next GRAWL show takes place at Steel Hands Brewing in Greensboro on Saturday, Sept. 28 at 7 p.m. Learn more and get tickets here.
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