Another Letter to Commissioner Gordon

 

Hey Commish Gordon, it’s been a while. 

Over three years at this point. Approaching 3½ as I write this. The last I wrote to you, it was about the recent announcement of an AUDL boycott, and sharing my thoughts on the situation (1). That proposal obviously never came to be. Not that I really thought it would. I had a nice chat with Tim Debyl after that letter too. But I thought I’d share my thoughts about my own proposal, the AUDL, pro ultimate as a whole, and talk a bit more about myself. 

Alright, let’s talk about my own proposal. It’s complicated, would require some pretty intense logistics, and pretty ambitious. It’s also kinda dumb. At that point I had only ever played in the open division as a man. I’ve since played a couple of seasons of mixed ultimate, albeit only at the YCC level and seen the disrespect that the division gets first hand. I’ve also become more aware of who gets attention and respect in the ultimate division. The problems with coverage of both Women’s and Mixed ultimate is nothing that any pro league can fix. Period. With the growth and arrival of the PUL and WUL, and some adjacent messiness, it’s been made abundantly clear to me that more pro ultimate is not the answer. But more on that later. 

The AUDL is a monument to our sport’s sins and dreams. A version of the sport tailor-made for television that’s almost never on television. If the AUDL were to boom, it could immensely elevate the level of the sport as a whole. It could boost the growth of an already growing sport, continuing to platform those who already have a platform, and appealing to people who see themselves represented in the league. If the AUDL were to bust, it would just be another footnote in the long and gradual growth of ultimate that seems to be the trend. All of that to say that the AUDL does not, in my eyes, affect the status quo of ultimate as a sport. It either grows and doubles down on the already inequitable representation, or it fails and the rest of the sport keeps trucking on. Any major changes or strides within diverse and equitable representation in the sport will be made outside the league. 

Professional ultimate, as I commented on earlier, does not seem to present the solution to the problems of ultimate as a sport. That’s because no amount of ultimate can fix the problems with ultimate. I’d like to take a moment to shout out the organizers of Flash Flood, who have established their main goals as racial justice oriented. And specifically stating that frisbee clinics are not involved in achieving those goals(2). Because the answer to ultimate’s problems is not anything that can be achieved on a frisbee field by any frisbee team. The answer is out there, in the world as a whole. While the white supremacist capitalist system persists, so too will the issues of the frisbee community. This is not to say that we shouldn’t build spaces and systems that benefit oppressed and marginalized groups that involve frisbee. But it is to say, as we build those spaces, we must also burn the system that makes them necessary. 

Much of that is things that people already understand or think for themselves and don’t need me to explain. So welcome to the last piece of this letter. This last piece is about how all of this pertains to me, Aaron, the author of this deluge of random shit that I think. In my letter I talk about dreaming of playing for the radicals. I no longer dream of that. I no longer dream of playing ultimate at the highest stages in the same way at all. That’s not the biggest change though in those first couple of paragraphs in that letter. I am still white, I’m still firmly supported by an upper middle class family. But I’ve realized that I am not a straight man. I’m not a man at all, and don’t feel properly defined by the label of heterosexuality at all. 

Realizing this, and growing my identity as my own has placed me in a far more precarious position within the sport of ultimate. Having played primarily for school teams, I haven’t had nearly as much freedom in choosing my teammates. I’ve had a hard time getting close with many of my teammates. Part of that is my own personality. Now there’s a whole new layer to that. I simply do not feel as welcome as a nonbinary player in the sport as I did as a male player. I have no doubt some of that is my own insecurities at work, making me believe I can’t be accepted on open teams while remaining true to myself. Mixed teams present less issue, and I feel would be more supportive of me. But a part of me just doesn’t want to find out which teams and divisions would support me the most. It’s a privilege I have to be able to consider hiding. There’s no doubt about that. 

There’s nothing you personally can do about all this. There’s probably no chance this reaches you. I don’t care at this point. I’m just doing a bit of reflecting for all the world to see. 

Sincerely, Aaron Liu (he/they)