Jack Monness

b. August 1996

Humans cannot exist and thrive without an environment, as long as we have a clean city where I can work, give back, build, play, have fun, meet friends, be myself, and be seen. That’s what New York City is to me right now. It’s not without its problems, but I owe it all to my city. It really helped make me who I am and it gives me so many opportunities. I grew up in Riverdale and then moved back here after college.

Through college, I did ultimate and I did mixed martial arts. I was starting to experiment with other pronouns… and I was in a really supportive community for that. At Macalester, everyone is so gay.

After college, was when I really was very secure in my understanding of my gender and sexuality. I have super feminine sides to my expression. I have super not masculine sides to my expression. I don’t necessarily like to feel like I have to do a gender performance.

When I started to meet people out here in New York that were playing as DoC, I started to understand what that meant. Just because I have a masculine body doesn’t mean I have to match up always against males. Seeing Spoon and Sam Harris and being close to them, I was like, “oh, I would try this,” and the people I was playing with all said they felt comfortable with that. They liked that I could actively express myself in that way and let my gender expression out and manifest itself on the field.

I would be going to open tournaments wearing tennis skirts and fishnets. Not that you can’t do that, but I was definitely the only one there. Most people think open just means men’s. That’s not what it means, but how many trans or female players do you see on open teams? The thing with open is that it doesn’t have direct guidelines around equity or DoW/DoC points… it’s just put seven on the line, period. That isn’t a format that should come off as exclusive, but I think more players like me are drawn to mixed because we know there’s going to be that level of inclusiveness. We know that people are being mindful of that. 

My captains ask me before every game, “what are you going to play for this one,” so we can talk to the other team if it’s a conversation to be had. Sophie checks in with me a lot. She’s so oriented towards making sure I feel comfortable and safe because at the beginning of my journey of being a DoC, I had very non-affirming experiences, and she really has gone to bat for me. 

So it’s not like it’s been all fun. It’s tough to overcome when you feel like someone’s just pointing at you on the sideline and you know it’s on the basis of gender and them just not understanding or having any education on the matter. But recently, now that I think I have more experience and have a team that knows how to play and bring trans and DoC players to tournaments in games, it’s been a lot more positive.

When I play DoM, I love being very physical on defense; I love the physicality of those kinds of matchups. Then I love being in a more intellectual headspace when I’m playing DoW matchups.

We get to play because the other team came out to play because each person was willing to give you that respect as an individual competitor and matchup. I look at it kind of how my karate method influenced it, where you bow to your person, and then you fuck them up, and then you bow again after. Whoever I’m playing, I just try to focus on having fun and honoring the time that we get on the field together, giving it our best.

I try to rep frisbee in a way that feels honest to New York. Frisbee is kind of its own identity, and it attracts people of a certain identity no matter where it’s played, but I feel like you have to bring New York into the equation. Like, do we have the worst fields? Yes. Do they all get torn up? Yes, but I love that we’re playing frisbee, and you got people with the El Salvador flag playing soccer right next to you, and we’re sharing the space. Or you’re in Brooklyn and people are out here having a cookout. Be a part of it; don’t be something exclusive, you know what I mean. 

Frisbee is exclusive because it’s seen as a college thing and college is still considered a very white institution. There are a lot of kids that have no exposure to Ultimate. They would love to play, but they might not own the cleats, and if they do, they might not be on the emails. 

I think we need more field space in the city. The Bronx especially, that’s a big focus for me. You’ll have five high schools stacked in one campus, and they have a track. That’s not conducive to them learning the game and playing seven on seven. What would [an inclusive frisbee environment] look like? Free, fun, open, and we need to see more structural changes in the city for that.