The New York Gridlock is a Premier Ultimate League Team based in New York, NY.

For the second year, the NY Gridlock has designed an apparel line to celebrate Pride, and to help spread awareness of the Black Trans Travel Fund.

The NYGL is donating the proceeds from sale of its Pride merchandise to the Black Trans Travel Fund. VC is matching their donation.

About Black Trans Travel Fund

The Black Trans Travel Fund is a grassroots, Black Trans led Collective, providing Black transgender women with financial and material resources needed to remove barriers to self-determining and accessing safer travel options.

Brittany Kaplan from the New York Gridlock shared her reflections with us.

New York Gridlock's Brittany Kaplan | Pride Reflections

NYGL was founded in 2019 when Co-Founder, Eileen Murray, convened a planning group of ultimate athletes to help her envision the team and apply to join the Premier Ultimate League. Many of us are still involved today as staff, athletes & founders.

NYGL & the PUL started as a response to inequities within our sport and we continue to push boundaries and hold ourselves accountable to our mission and to each other. LGBTQ2S+ inclusivity was at the center of our early conversations and we continue to learn and grow as a team and community.

In January 2019 we publicly recognized that gender is a spectrum and exists beyond the binary. Cis, trans, non-binary, and genderqueer players were invited to come tryout and play for the team. Our team and League have no gender eligibility requirements.

Our team and League have no gender eligibility requirements.

In 2020, our Director of Community Engagement, Khunsa Amin, mediated a focus group of trans, non-binary, and genderqueer players to discuss language and NYGL’s mission statement. With their guidance, we updated the mission statement to remove the “x” from women, and replaced it with “women (cis and trans), non-binary and genderqueer.”

As an organization led by cis white women, we are continually learning from critique and acknowledging that our mission statement, goals, and values are growing and evolving documents.

Our team has had queer players and organizers from the beginning, and I am one of them! I feel extremely lucky and grateful to be on a team where I can safely show up as my whole self.

Simply the fact that I know our team has many queer players with different experiences and perspectives makes me feel more comfortable. Over the last few years I have worked to not assume someone’s gender or sexual identity and I have felt that happening towards me as well.

I am excited to continue pushing towards a sports world that can operate outside the binaries and embrace fluidity across all the spectrums.

You can join the NYGL in celebrating Pride by making a direct donation to the Black Trans Travel Fund, or purchase a piece of New York Gridlock Pride apparel and we'll donate 30% of the purchase price on your behalf.