Avery Feingold

b. September 2005

My freshman year, when I got to college, I introduced myself with a different name to everyone I met. I cannot possibly see that as entirely separate from this desire to connect with people through the way that we refer to each other. I think that gender constructs can prevent us from connecting with one another sometimes, and so eliminating gender as much as possible is a nice way to try and bridge gaps.

I think my own ability to see myself in gender is affected by my societal perceptions of gender and size, and I definitely am constantly feeling like I couldn’t really pass as a woman because of my size. I’m super aware of myself as a big body and a person who generates a lot of power and force on the field. Especially playing in women’s spaces or matching up with other DoWs, I’m very, very cognizant always of body control and safety

The New York ultimate community has been so great in terms of including me and making me feel like I could play in the ways that made me feel good. I think most of my challenges have been internal of getting over my own imposture syndrome. I don’t want to live in a state of mind where that doesn’t exist, because I think that’s too dangerous to literally ignore.

There’s definitely conversations I have with my partner, and thoughts I have for myself, of would I even want to be on a team where they’re competing in tournaments that are going to be streamed? My parents have never really seen me play ultimate. My dad lives in Pittsburgh, and my mom lives in Oregon. It would be fun to be able to say, “look, I was on stream, here’s a nice film.”

And also some fear around that, for sure. I think about my friends who are trans femme and also play in the women’s division. It’s something we’ve talked about together, trying to figure out that balance between wanting to be recognized for being a great player and also not be in the spotlight too much. For me, again tied to size, I look at myself and I look at them and I’m like, I think I would stick out more than them.

If there are random transphobes watching a stream then it’s more likely to be like, what the hell is this person doing here? I believe the majority of the community would rally to support, and I’m not worried about the tides in general, except that the country we’re in and the power dynamic is such that it could be really dangerous, genuinely, for me and for other people.

The U.S. Olympic Committee made a new rule that trans women are not allowed to compete in any sports. USA Ultimate, because they were trying to get ultimate as an Olympic sport, would in theory be subject to these rules. Frisbee is so much more than one thing for a lot of us, it’s our chosen families, it’s a home away from home, it’s the love that we have for our friends and our bodies. The idea of losing the ability to play frisbee is such a terrifying concept, because it’s so much of the home we have built for ourselves. 

There’s a big Discord community of trans ultimate players that has been talking about this… and we are all talking to our teams. Our teams love us and are committed to supporting us, so they are all putting out individual or joint statements defending the rights of trans folks to play ultimate, and are planning to jointly commit to boycott USA Ultimate if USA Ultimate doesn’t uphold their gender inclusion policy. Knowing that this broad community has our backs is so important.

I think it’s all about relationships, really. There’s all sorts of systematic things that people can do that are helpful and facilitate relationships, but in the end, I think the thing that has been most personally meaningful to me are the individual relationships I’ve had with teammates, where it’s very clear to me that they love me for who I am and see me for who I am, and that’s really great.