queer-athlete-culture-is

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Happy Pride Month!

Faust the Crow loves you even more than she did the last 2 years!

[queer-athlete-culture-is]

Teammates

Faces People I once knew Not strangers, but teammates But now I don’t recognize you

How can this be We were close once But now that we don’t see Each other whatsoever

Your name is lost To the winds of time And the fading memories Are all that remain mine

[queer-athlete-culture-is]

Ashlyn Harris (she/her)

Ashlyn Harris is married to fellow NWSL & USWNT player Ali Krieger! Following last NWSL season Harris retired from playing soccer and now serves as the Global Creative Advisor for NJ/NY Gotham FC. She has won 2 worlds cups with the USWNT and holds the 2nd most career saves in the NWSL. Harris and Krieger have also adopted two children together, Sloane and Ocean.

[queer-athlete-culture-is]

Queer Athlete Spotlight 2!

Hi everybody! I've decided I'm going to do the queer athlete spotlight again this year!

I've been pretty busy lately so I haven't had time to learn about new queer athletes, so that's where y'all come in!

Submit all of the queer athletes you know here!

(you can submit the form multiple times)

Until I have new submissions or time to learn about new queer athletes myself I will be posting updated versions of the same athletes as last year

[queer-athlete-culture-is]

Queer Athlete Spotlight 2!

Hi everybody! I've decided I'm going to do the queer athlete spotlight again this year!

I've been pretty busy lately so I haven't had time to learn about new queer athletes, so that's where y'all come in!

Submit all of the queer athletes you know here!

(you can submit the form multiple times)

Until I have new submissions or time to learn about new queer athletes myself I will be posting updated versions of the same athletes as last year

[queer-athlete-culture-is]

Queer Athlete Spotlight 2!

Hi everybody! I've decided I'm going to do the queer athlete spotlight again this year!

I've been pretty busy lately so I haven't had time to learn about new queer athletes, so that's where y'all come in!

Submit all of the queer athletes you know here!

(you can submit the form multiple times)

Until I have new submissions or time to learn about new queer athletes myself I will be posting updated versions of the same athletes as last year

[queer-athlete-culture-is]

Quinn (they/them)

How could I not end with them, the old profile photo? Quinn is a nonbinary soccer midfielder who plays for the NWSL team OL Reign and the Canadian Women’s National Soccer Team. Quinn’s achievements include a silver medal at the 2012 CONCACAF Women’s U-17 Championship along with two Olympic medals, one bronze and one gold. They were also the first openly trans (and nonbinary) person to compete in the olympics.

Quinn has had a huge impact on me personally, but I won’t go into that here, you can read it here if you would like.

[queer-athlete-culture-is]

See Me, the Real Me, Play

When you see me, you don’t really see me—you see my body, you see me as an element of my team, you see me as who I am not. You want to put everyone in boxes, confining, constricting, all-containing boxes. But I don’t fit. You try to make me fit, but that doesn’t work the way you think it does. I tried for so long just to be a girl, imitating what you wanted me to be: the perfect little girl. But it didn’t work. So I tried for even longer, for so long, for too long, to hide it, and pretend, and to truly be what I wasn’t. But I couldn’t. Eventually I broke. It wasn’t worth it anymore. It was tearing me up inside to pretend. I’m not a girl. Stop calling me what I’m not. Stop telling me I am what I’m not. See me as me—not the perfect image you crafted in your head to fit your perfect society.

You have this binary in your head: girls wear pink and dresses and play with dolls; boys wear blue and pants and build with blocks. When I was young I attempted to be that perfect little girl in your strict binary world. I covered my room in pink and purple, because that’s what you said girls do. I ignored my discomfort while I slipped into dresses. I played with girls’ building toys when all I wanted was basic LEGO bricks. I played that role of perfect little girl until the questions swirling around in my head became deafening. I couldn’t deny myself any longer.

I thought I was wrong, I was different and that couldn’t be right, I had to be imagining things. Eventually I learned who I was and allowed myself to accept it. But the fear that I wouldn’t be understood, that I would be shunned, that maybe I was still wrong about myself, that fear still hung over my head. When the time was right, the fear wasn’t enough to stop me anymore (I saw how accepting my community could be) and slowly the words started to tumble out. I started to tell people, and so many of them understood. Then an ever greater fear overtook me—coming out to my team, what if their feelings echoed the laws, what if they kicked me off the all girls team? 

So many things were good—and yet the little things still hurt—every misgendering, every deadnaming, every slip-up, every wrong assumption—every word felt like betrayal, limbs tearing apart, confusion and anguish balled together and rammed into my chest—but I couldn’t show it, I tried to hide it, I shrugged it off, and ignored it, and said it was ok, but it’s wasn’t. So, one day, in a snap decision, I did it, I finally came out to my team. And they cheered, all of them, clapping and shouting because—who cares if I want to go by a different name and pronouns—I’m not leaving them.

I try on my uniform and look at myself in the mirror. A shudder runs through my body. How can something tied to such joy cause such pain? That’s me in the mirror, but I don’t see myself. I rip the uniform off. I can’t do this. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t put this uniform on again. But I guess I have to—

At home, I put on my binder instead. It’s so tight, painfully so at times, but it’s worth it—so worth it. I look in the mirror and smile—there I am—there They are. I feel the pressure against my chest, like a strong hug from a good friend. I wear my binder as much for you as for me. When I bind you finally see me. The shes and hers evaporate from your lips—replaced by hes and hims—still not right—but better.

I show up to another game, in a new uniform that finally doesn’t cling to all the wrong places. I hear someone on another team call out my deadname. I start to turn, to react, to correct, but I stop. That’s not me anymore. They don’t know what that one simple name means to me—meant to me. They don’t know the fear that shot through me when I heard those two syllables leave their lips. They don’t know the dread I feel that maybe someone will be referring to me with that name. Dread so real and relevant a few minutes later when the ref calls out my deadname. I correct him and tell him my number. Yet, he corrects me. (Correcting me on how to say my own Name and correcting me for having a boy’s Name and correcting me for not being what he expects.)

My coach gathers us together for our cheer: “bring it in girls” (“And me,” I say). Moments later the ref calls “let’s go ladies” (“And me,” I think). Their words sting, but they don’t know that. Why would you think about what you say? Girl’s soccer team, a bunch of femme presenting people (and me), why would you stop to consider anybody else? No one acknowledges the exceptions, the oddities, the queers. We don’t fit your perfect boxes, so you decide we don’t fit at all. All I want is to exist, my teammates and me, all seen equal, all seen as ourselves.

[queer-athlete-culture-is]

Queer athlete culture is your partner making your day when they tell you how much they want to come see you play

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Queer athlete culture is being super sad when you find out one of your closest teammates (who is also queer) is switching teams

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Queer athlete culture is—despite how annoying it is—being glad that your teammates are invested in your love life because the other option is they could be homophobic about it

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Queer athlete culture is explaining the term aro to one of your teammates

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Queer athlete culture is finding it funny how excited some of the seniors on your team get when they see you slow dancing with your partner at a school dance

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Queer athlete culture is being the one to write a senior night speech for one of your queer teammates

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queer athlete culture is wearing a flannel over your uniform