Sydney Friedman

b. February 1993

I’ve always kind of identified as an alien. A neighbor had put that on me, and I was like, “You know what, that’s accurate. You’re trying to bully me, but actually this works.” I grew up in a small town where no one was like me, and for the longest time, I felt like the only person.

I have a tattoo right here that says “them.” Yeah, it’s my pronouns, but also that was my tattoo before I chose those pronouns. For me, it’s the extra-terrestrial “them.”

Transness wasn’t a word for me until I was 26 and moved to New York. In 2011, ultimate’s uniform was these long Five shorts that were baggy. I was like, great, now it’s appropriate for me to look like a boy, and I will play this sport.

When I started playing ultimate, USAU was under the same guidelines as the Olympics, and if you took hormones, you couldn’t play. It was the [2018] USAU lift that really changed that for me.

You know when you’re queer and you don’t want to admit it, so it’s kind of like a dream that you’re suppressing. That’s kind of what was happening, and so, when it was made okay, I let myself feel like it was okay.

Disc NY was changing drastically at the time that I moved to New York, and I was one of the first people out and who was loud. The Disc NY board and main volunteers were doing a lot of inclusion work. Once I was in, I was so curious. I went to all the meetings I could and just wanted to get involved. 

My physical transition aligned with the pandemic. I started taking testosterone in March of 2020, a week or two before the shutdown, and then I got top surgery in March of 2021. Back then, you couldn’t do top surgery if you weren’t a year on testosterone. I never wanted testosterone; I just wanted top surgery, but I had to do one to have the other. Now, I feel very happy in my gender expression. I no longer hold that.

I remember coming back as a floater for winter league, and I couldn’t wait for them to need me to switch teams so that I could rip my jersey off and throw on a light. Wearing a pinnie after top surgery is the greatest feeling.

One of my closest friends is someone I met playing. That friend came out as trans, non-binary. It was me being who I am in the ultimate space that allowed for them to have that space. They told me that years later; that was really powerful. 

To see myself outside of myself, and know that I have an influence or that I create a space that is warm and comforting, where people can show up in any way, that is really important for me. I wanted to do as much as I could, so that when I leave the space, it stays and it keeps improving.

Because I am white, because I learned ultimate in college, because I went to college, because of all of these factors, I have this identity standing that allows me to be loud and vocal and ask for things that I want and need and demand space. And because I am AFAB, trans-masc, masculine-presenting, it allows me to be that way, but I imagine if any of those factors were different, I would not be as comfortable as I am speaking up. I really think that it is the intersection of all of those that put me in a place to be loud, so that I can write policy, so that I can be in charge of the high school league and make sure that trans kids are included, so that I can make sure that league is inclusive. All of these things, I think, are due to that.