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Brendan Bannon for The New York Times
BUFFALO — He changed his voice mail recording and created a new email address. He updated his LinkedIn profile, too, to reflect his new name.
With those details settled, and the National Women’s Hockey League season about to begin, Harrison Browne, who was born Hailey Browne and identifies as a man, was ready to debut as the first openly transgender athlete in professional team sports in North America.
Browne, a 23-year-old wing for the Buffalo Beauts, first heard his new name over the public-address system here at HarborCenter during player introductions for the season opener, on Oct. 7 against the Boston Pride. He heard it again when he scored his team’s lone goal in a 4-1 loss.
“If somebody asked me later down the road what my favorite moment was, that will definitely be one of the top,” Browne said about the goal call, an audio clip of which he has saved. “I would have loved for it to have been a game-winning goal. It was amazing just to hear the crowd cheer so loud. I was elated. The timing was perfect.”
Bruce Jenner, a former Olympic decathlon champion, came out as a transgender woman in 2015 and took the name Caitlyn Jenner. And Chris Mosier, a professional triathlete who was born a woman, publicly identified himself as a transgender man in 2010 and competed for the United States national team at the sprint duathlon world championships in June. There have been transgender athletes on college teams, too.
But no active player in a professional team sport in North America is believed to have come out publicly as transgender before Browne did so in an interview with ESPN published hours before the season opener.
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Brendan Bannon for The New York Times
“When Harrison came to me and wanted it to be public, and wanted us to respect his name and his pronoun and for him to play as his authentic self, the first thought was, how can I support this player, and what are the next steps to do so?” said Dani Rylan, commissioner of the four-team N.W.H.L., which is now in its second season of operation.
The N.W.H.L. has changed Browne’s name and pronouns on his player profile on the league website. And the league is working with You Can Play — an organization that works to ensure athletes are not discriminated against because of sexual orientation or gender identity — to create a policy on transgender players that respects the rights of athletes and concerns about fair play.
“It’s important for us to get it right, and we’re confident we’ll get it right,” said Rylan, who expects a policy to be in place this season.
Browne said he was not motivated to come out by thoughts of being a pioneer.
“When I came out, it wasn’t ‘I want to do this to be an advocate,’” he said at a Starbucks on a sunny autumn morning last week. “I want to do this because I want to feel comfortable in my own playing environment, my workplace, because it’s my job. That’s why I did it. I’ve seen all these posts where people say I’m an inspiration, and people thanking me for what I’m doing, just being myself.”
Browne had come out to his family, friends and teammates by his sophomore year at the University of Maine, where he played women’s hockey. But he continued to be known publicly as Hailey Browne, including during the 2015-16 N.W.H.L. season, in which he had five goals and seven assists in 18 games for the Beauts.
“Supporting a teammate goes beyond the rink,” said Ric Seiling, the Beauts’ general manager and coach, who played 10 N.H.L. seasons. “Harrison has been a great team player for the team. We need to support Harrison in his decision.”
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Brendan Bannon for The New York Times
Browne’s nickname in high school was Harry, he said, and it stuck with him.
“It was comforting to me to not be called a female name,” he said. “I gravitated toward it, and that’s what it took.”
For now, Browne’s change is in name only. He has said he will delay a physical transition, including hormone treatments, until after his hockey career is over.
Until then, Browne, who is a wiry 5 feet 4, has to deal with occasional slip-ups.
“Some people call me ‘sir’; some call me ‘ma’am,’” he said. “I don’t get upset about that. How would they know? You just have to keep in mind that one day it won’t be like that.”
At practice last week for the Beauts, who are 1-2 heading into a home game Sunday against the Connecticut Whale, teammates described Browne as a speedy, gritty wing who plays an in-your-face game. A humble workout warrior who led the team with 20 pull-ups during fitness testing, he spends long hours crocheting on team bus rides and is boisterous in the locker room.
At home, he adores his pet ferrets, said defender Paige Harrington and forward Devon Skeats, who share a house with Browne.
“He is such a strong person,” said Harrington, who had never known a transgender person before. “He’s comfortable with himself. He’s hard-working. He’s encouraging to others. He’s the perfect person to be the first to come out and be transgender in women’s hockey.”
Skeats played in a professional women’s league in Austria before the N.W.H.L. and had a transgender teammate who had begun a physical transition and was receiving hormone supplements.
“He was my best friend on the team there,” she said. “So it was kind of cool when I came here and met Brownie.”
Skeats added: “It’s what he wants to do, what he wants to be, and I’m happy for him. There’s nothing different. He’s just another teammate.”
In the long hockey tradition, Skeats and Harrington referred to Browne by a nickname: Brownie, the same one he had last season. Among the Beauts, there was seldom mention of “Harrison.”
Seiling, the coach, said he called Browne Harrison only when he was angry.
“To all of us, Harrison is Brownie,” Seiling said. “All athletes have some sort of nickname, or last name. When I start using a different name, they automatically know, I screwed up.”
But out in the wider world, there is no negative connotation to the name Harrison — just a public and private life finally in alignment, and a sound he savors.
“I have people like you coming out, saying, ‘Hey, Harrison,’” Browne said to a reporter who met him at the coffee shop. “It’s nice to hear people call me by my name. It’s definitely very freeing.”
