Union College athletics administrator is living her truth - Spectrum News

Union College athletics administrator is living her truth - Spectrum News
By: Sports Posted On: April 02, 2022 View: 579

Union College athletics administrator is living her truth - Spectrum News

Sporting an amazing pair of pink Chuck Taylor sneakers on a cool Thursday in Upstate New York, Union College Assistant Athletic Director Brianne Brinker reflected on her years in athletics.

Brinker was a college hockey coach, but said she wanted a career with less travel so she could spend more time at home with her family. The perfect opportunity came along in Schenectady running the facilities for the Union Athletic Department.

“It’s a busy career," Brinker said. "It’s a lot to do, but I like it. I love sports.”

Eighteen years later, she’s still here, but things have changed for her over that time. Brinker said she was around 5-years-old when she knew something was different about her, and only later started to understand a bit more about what was going on.

“You hear the word transsexual or you hear transvestite. I had to hide it and everything, and it got really, really daunting after a while,” Brinker said.


What You Need To Know

  • According to studies .7% of adults in the U.S. ages 18-24 identify as transgender, and .5% of adults 65 and older identify as transgender

  • Brinker is in the Hall of Fame at Kent State for hockey

  • Brinker was married to her wife for 31 years until her wife died of cancer

Brinker grew up loving sports and ended up playing Division I hockey at Kent State on the men’s team. She excelled so much, she’s now in the Hall of Fame there.

She said once she graduated, she started to delve into her feelings more. Feeling like a woman, Brinker said she started experimenting with dress a bit.

“I got to the point later and I would be sneaking around, and I might wear something, like I might find a women’s blouse to wear or find something like a pair of shoes or heels just to feel somewhat of who I am," she said. "But it would really piss me off and make me upset when I had to go take that stuff back off.”

Brinker thought about different things, like maybe she should be doing drag. But she said she didn’t want to be an entertainer and she never wanted to go back to living life as a man.

She also said she would frequent gay bars, because she felt more comfortable there. When she realized she was transgender, she figured she had to date men and be attracted to men. After all, she was considering transitioning, but “that wasn’t it. That wasn’t going to fly.”

Brinker said she is attracted to women. She’s always been attracted to women, and spent 31 years married to a woman. This is not about sexuality and sex.

Speaking of her wife Marian, she was the first person Brinker came out to. It wasn’t anything that was planned. Marian had been diagnosed with cancer a second time, and Brinker said they knew it was terminal.

She said she needed to tell her secret so she could focus on her wife.

One night, they watched Bohemian Rhapsody. The next morning, they woke up and started talking about the movie and how Marian’s brother is gay. Brinker said she knew it was the moment to finally tell her wife the truth.

“She knew there was something going on in my past, but she didn’t know much and I didn’t tell her much about it," Brinker said. "I knew she had to be the first one I’d tell. There was a side of her that was upset. Overall, she totally understood and tried to come up with a plan about how we were going to tell the kids, when we were going to tell the kids, when we were going to do this.”

Once they did inform their two children, they handled it differently.

Their son Alejandro took it in stride. Their daughter Jade was devastated.

“That was the hardest part of it, was that she was crushed, and that made me the most sad of anything,” Brinker said.

Brinker's wife died of cancer in October of 2021. 

Brinker said the summer before was when her relationship with her daughter healed. Now, after 31 years of marriage and much change, Brinker and her two children are trying to move forward.

Brinker lets them lead the way on how they want to handle things. She told them they could call her whatever makes them most comfortable. At first, it was still dad, but now they call her Brianne.

In terms of how Union College handled someone in the administration transitioning, “They wrote the book on how to handle this,” Brinker said.

She said Senior Associate Athletic Director Joanne Little was the first person she told.

“She just gave me a big hug and was super supportive,” Brinker said.

The next was Athletic Director Jim McLaughlin.

“I was nervous. You never know what someone is going to think," Brinker said. "I mean, here's this big football dude, played in college, but he couldn’t have handled it better.”

Brinker’s parents struggled to accept the new reality at first, but she said, that too, is much better.

Her advice to parents who have a child struggling with gender identity?

“Don’t be your child’s first bully," Brinker said. "You could really be a bully to that child by just not listening, not accepting.”

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