Sweet Miche

b. January 1997

I started playing frisbee on the first day of my freshman year. I think I’ve really defined myself with like what’s the weird quirky thing I can do. Being from Portland, Oregon, we’re obsessed with being weird. 

I play as a DoC, defender of choice. Part of me playing as a DoC is a political statement. Like me saying that I’m queer or even me using they/them pronouns… I am saying these binaries are stupid. I don’t think gendered matchups make sense… they’re a lazy tool to what we’re actually trying to accomplish, which is finding the people who are more aligned in speed, strength, or whatever. 

Ultimate is the most gendered thing I do. On the field playing mixed, it’s the one time in my day where I still have to pick a gender. Even though we worked really hard to de-gender the language we use on the field, it’s still a time where I need to think about it and my body.

At Fall or Spring league at Brooklyn Bridge Park, I like the hockey subs. If I'm first in line, whoever comes off the field, I go in for. I think that feels like the most natural. I don’t have to choose. I’m the next in line, so I’ll be whatever the next person who comes off is.

My freshman year, a friend of mine, Sam, died by suicide. She played on the Open team at Oberlin. She was a trans girl. I don’t know if I could have articulated that at the time, but feeling like if we had gotten our shit together as an ultimate community, to make her feel safer and more welcome, I don’t think we could have prevented her death, but I do think by not getting our shit together, we didn’t do anything to prevent her death.

I think ultimate, like college, is a place where we get to try making utopia as much as possible. Why can’t we just try to do the best we can? It’s okay to fight for those little things that make people slightly more comfortable. Even the smallest of changes are worth testing. Because it is a chance to try to create what does a utopia sports community look like? And it feels like ultimate is one of the only places that is really actually somewhat wanting to do that.

At McCarren in 2017, when I was visiting New York, I was one of 3 or 4 non-dudes there. I would get on the line and people would say, "Gender across” and I would say, “No thanks. Let’s just go across.” Those conversations were not really being had. I was a baby and these four men surrounded me on all sides being like “What’s going on?” Ben Pakter, years before I actually knew him, came in and was like, “Guys look at how you’re standing right now. Don’t do that.” I walked off and just started sobbing. That’s one of many times that something like that has happened to me.

A lot of the reason I want to continue to play mixed is because it has the potential to be so great, and I want to make it great for the next generation of people. If I am the guinea pig, that means someone else doesn’t have to be. It’s definitely worth it because I get to be part of trying to figure out how to make everyone feel better on the field.

What is cool about New York City ultimate is that, for the most part, people are willing to experiment with trying and seeing if something works. People changed the language to DoC pretty quickly, and that was pretty cool. I know that’s little, but I think represents a willingness to be like, does this make people slightly more comfortable? How can we create a sport that tries its best in the conditions we have?