Who would have thought the old lead in from the Saturday afternoon ABC sports show would come to this, “The Wide, Wide World of Sports.” Harrison Browne, who until the name change was Hailey Browne, is the first transgender professional sports athlete in North America. Granted it is a minor league female hockey team, bit none-the-less the first.

According to

“I identify as a man,” Browne said, according ESPNW. “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.” Browne first came out privately to his coaches while playing hockey at Maine, but decided to delay his medical transition when the NWHL was formed in 2014 to allow him to play professionally. He decided to come out this year to allow himself to feel more comfortable on and off the ice.

Browne said he was planning to make the medical transition to being a man after completing his college career at Maine. He said he put that on hold in spring of 2015 for an opportunity to play in the newly created NWHL. So it boils down to a female hockey player saying she is a male, and now wishes to identify as a man, even though she has not transitioned in any way at this time, so she is a transgender? Sometimes it is more than I can bare. What do you think?