Earlier this week, Harrison Browne (formerly Hailey) of the NWHL’s Buffalo Beauts became the openly transgender to play in a major North American sports league. Harrison, who shone as a Maine Black Bear in college and debuted with the Beauts in their inaugural (and championship) season last year, says that he previously came out privately to coaches, teammates and close family and friends in college and on the Beauts, but decided that in order to fully enjoy the sport that he loves now was the right time to make his identified gender public. Browne also won a silver medal while playing for Canada at the 2011 IIHF World Women’s Under-18 Championships.
He says that being open about his true self improved his game, and told ESPN,
“My family is starting to come to grips with it, now it’s my time to be known as who I am, to be authentic and to hear my name said right when I get a point, or see my name on a website. When I put that equipment on, I’m a hockey player. I don’t think about who I’m playing with, I don’t think I’m playing with women. I don’t think I’m in the wrong body.”
In the Beauts’ opening game, Browne scored a sweet goal that cut the Boston Pride’s lead to 4-1, and talked after the game about how great it felt to score his first hockey goal as an open and out player.
Goal by Harrison Browne (@Hbrowne24) First of the season for the @BuffaloBeauts #NWHL pic.twitter.com/Wc5xHOd6no
— NWHL Gifs (@nwhlgifs) October 8, 2016
"It was unreal. Unlike anything I've ever felt before." – @Hbrowne24 on scoring the lone Beauts goal at home and hearing his name called. pic.twitter.com/Q3bh5skS6x
— Buffalo Beauts (@BuffaloBeauts) October 8, 2016
The commissioner of the NWHL, Dani Rylan, stated that the league is looking into ways for openly transgender players of either gender to join the league in the future and fully supports Browne’s transition, stating that
“At the end of the day, Harrison is the same player he was last year. We’re here to support him. It’s really not a big deal when you look at it, we’re respecting his name, the pronouns and his request to be his authentic self.”
While he says that he is putting off a surgical transition and name change (for visa reasons) currently, Browne also says that he has not completely dismissed the idea of attempting to play for a men’s hockey team in the future.
How this changes the landscape of professional sports as a whole is yet to be seen. The NWHL stopped Harrison from answering a question about recently anti-transgender citizen laws around the country in the post-game scrum, proving that even though the NWHL is very publicly on board with Browne’s identity and transition there are still some PR risks that they are not willing to take.
The NWHL is also a younger league, having only been created within the last two years or so. As such, it is already focused on creating an equal playing field throughout the sport of hockey and this is only another example of that mission statement in action. While other anticipated breakthroughs in pro leagues have been derailed for one reason or another (see: Michael Sam’s eventual decision to leave football for personal reasons after becoming the first openly gay draft pick in NFL history), this is an example of our LGBT athletes in pro sports being younger players just beginning their professional careers.
Earlier this year, Elena Delle Donne of the WNBA came out and announced that she was engaged to her partner all in one fell swoop before the Rio Olympics. Delle Donne is not the first openly gay women’s basketball player, but there is a decided trend of identity announcements coming from women’s sports leagues more than men’s sports, a trend that Harrison Browne has now contributed to.
It is a complete guess as to whether the reaction from the public (mostly positive tweets and messages from fans) and his teammates (uniformly supportive) will send a message to other athletes of either gender who are considering coming out that times are changing all across pro sports, not just in the NWHL. However, that the reaction to Harrison’s announcement has been widely accepting and supportive is an important step towards all sports leagues being welcoming to players in similar situations. It may be a long time yet before a gay man plays in an NFL game or a transgender man joins the NBA, but Browne’s comfort in his own skin while playing in a pro league is something that wouldn’t have been as feasible even a half a decade ago, and is an encouraging step forward for all North American pro sports leagues and teams.
(via ESPN W, USA Today, The Buffalo News)
