As a child, I absolutely loved hockey and was just consumed and obsessed with sports in general. I knew all the baseball standings throughout summer and the hockey standings throughout winter. I wanted to be a professional hockey player and accomplished playing college hockey. I wasn't the best to come out of our town, but made it to my college's Hall of Fame at Kent State University.

Now, I am the assistant athletic director of facilities at Union College, and I've been the event administrator for every hockey game in the past 19 years. I came out abut three years ago and I'm in my fourth year on HRT.

As an athletic administrator, it was a terrifying but amazing process to go through. I was starting to dress more differently and told a couple of close friends here in our department. I came out to our Associate Athletic Director and she was terrific – she totally understands queer culture. My direct supervisor was amazing about it too.

Then I came out to the entire department, entire campus, and entire hockey community in the area, as I coach adults and kids, and referee. Everyone was just so affirming.

I'm on several committees now. I Co-Chair the LGBTQ+ committee on campus, I Co-Chair our athletics inclusion committee. I'm also on a couple of committees where I didn't have a voice before. Now I do have that voice.

I've made this statement recently where I realized that, "I feel like I have trans privilege on this campus," and trans privilege really doesn't exist.

But that's the way I feel. Maybe that's the way normal people with a voice feel.

My personality has completely changed, my confidence has changed. I love working every day. I love looking in the mirror. I love who I'm looking at. I'm just so incredibly happy. I feel like myself and feel very good about who I am.

I am unapologetically out and I just want to end the stigma of being queer

Our LGBTQ committee has been amazing. In the first couple of years, I learned more than I put in. I got way more out of it than I contributed, or at least I feel I did. But we still have a long way to go with increasing the diversity of our student body.

Some people don't want to have 'LGBTQ issues' pushed in their faces, but I am unapologetically out and I talk about it often. I just want to end the stigma of being queer. I just want it to be normal.

When I was first coming out to some students, I was thought of as the ‘dude that used to be a guy’ who works in athletics and runs the facilities. But most of those students have graduated. The students who are on campus now just know me as Brianne. They know a little bit about my story, they know I'm trans, that I'm proud of it and that I'm out there.

But we've still got a lot more to do when it comes to sports. Not just for trans people, but also for queer people. We’re all still having a hard time and we’re all still facing that stigma. With our inclusion committee, I'm trying to break through that by saying, "Hey, this is okay. If somebody on the women’s team wants to bring their girlfriend around to watch their games and to their parties, that should be okay."

Because who are we serving here? Are we serving everybody? Or are we just serving the majority?

There's still a bro culture out there, and a lot of guilt travels with me

With this campus and our society, there's still a bro culture where to be a dude, you have to be tough and mean.

I was in high school in college in the mid-80s, and people would say "That's where gay people go, we don't want to go there."

Why not? I didn't have the guts to say that because I had to fit in.

We’d be sitting and having beers with the boys who are saying, "I'm gonna go bang that b**** over there" — and all this other stuff.

People would be laughing and somebody else would join in saying he's gonna do “something better” and out of six people, a few are laughing, some maybe feel the same way, and if they don't, they're certainly not going to say it.

But there might actually be a wingnut in there that thinks "I can do that."

So there's a lot of guilt that travels with me, because I didn’t say anything about that. I didn't say, "Hey, what if that girl doesn't want to be involved in that?"

I have a hard time with the word "brave" – I didn't want anything to shine a spotlight on how I might be queer.

We didn't have the language for it back in those days. We didn't have phones. We didn't have computers. We didn't have any at this.

The model Caroline Cossey who worked under the name Tula, was in a Bond movie and was stealth. No one knew she was trans and she got outed by paparazzi. Her life was immediately turned upside down and I'm thinking "I don't know if I'll ever be able to do this."

It’s similar with sports now — we want to put ourselves out there, but there's apprehension there. With my students, I’m trying to understand: Is this apprehension there because there's a lot of work to it and time commitment? Or is it because they don't want to deal with the bullshit?

The euphoria right now comes from waking up every day and being able to be who I am

I stopped playing hockey about 13 years ago. I was getting burned out and didn't want to be around the dude culture anymore. I was done with all the BS. But Team Trans came along and just revitalized me. It’s a trans hockey team, which creates a great space to celebrate trans people who love hockey.

We have all levels from beginners to people who have played pro. There's lots of love, hugs, getting to know people, and making friends.

I love playing with them and it's still the only team I play with. I'm also bringing this team on our campus, and trying to put out the message to say, "Look, these people are just like you. They're great people. They are people who work in the United States government. They are people who are nurses and teachers. They are people who are just like everybody else.. They are also people who unfortunately struggle to get jobs."

We're starting to get some popularity and notoriety, but what we want is to make it so that we don't have to be just on our own. We want kids in high school to be able to play with their teams in alignment with their gender and the way they present themselves.

Playing goalie in hockey was my happy place. I loved it and couldn't get enough of it. There's times it was hard, but I didn't mind that. I loved being able to have a great game and make some friends.

There were times I didn't want to be around my peers because I was very uncomfortable dealing with the rejection. Especially in high school, I had all kinds of different things going on in my head.

There was some dysphoria there but I didn't know that language. I didn't realize what it was. But the euphoria right now is honestly waking up every day and being able to be who I am.

You can't just hate trans people and validate it by saying you follow Christ

It hurts to see what high school kids are experiencing with these laws that are being passed against them. It hurts because those kids have the bravery to come out and be who they are at that young age — guts that I didn't have.

And now they’re experiencing this legislation that comes from hate and misinformation around ‘tipping the scales’ and different things like that. I know how my muscle mass has decreased a lot since I've been on hormones. Yeah, you can say that I've got larger bones or that I've got longer arms. You can say that I can do this, I can do that, that I'm bigger, or whatever.

But, there's cisgender women who are bigger than me. I'm 5'11 and 198 pounds, and there are a lot of people who are bigger and better than me. Definitely, a lot of people who are smarter than me.

I know what it's like to be considered a woman, and trans and nonbinary kids should have that chance. The people here at Union College include me in women's things such as women's conferences, women's listservs, and so on. It really means a ton just to have them affirm who I am, and trans kids need that.

Because right now we have these people who are making laws and have no freaking idea about us. It's all political. It's all hate that’s based on hate.

They're calling themselves Christians, but you can't just hate people and then come back and say that you follow Christ and that you're more special to God than anybody else.

I think we’re all indebted to Lia Thomas for what she’s been put through

In high school sports they're complaining about 'competitive imbalance' but they don't care about the competitive imbalance between schools. They don’t care if kids from one school don't get training because they can't afford it, whereas kids in the competing school can afford to spend a lot of money on coaches, assistants, equipment, and maintaining the best field.

They don't worry about that competitive imbalance, but they're worried about trans athletes.

Some of these lawmakers say that trans athletes are 'stopping people from getting college scholarships'.

Well, if high school sports were about getting college scholarships, they're doing a horsesh*t job. The percentage of kids playing high school sports who go on to play college sports is extremely low. So there's just not that many opportunities to begin with.

The NCAA really messed up last year when they decided to change the rules so that Lia Thomas can't swim in the Nationals. Like really? You're gonna change the rules a month and a half away from the championships? You can't do that.

And she only won one. It's not a given that she’ll be racing faster than others because she’s trans. I commend her for going through all the bullshit, and I think we're all indebted to her for being a pioneer for that.

Opposite of a Caitlyn Jenner, who is absolutely trying to drive us into the ground and does nothing for our community. When she came out, I was ecstatic because she was an athlete with all that notoriety. It was a little bit of a validation for people like me in sports.

But then for her to say the stuff that she's saying — it's almost like she's not one of us now.

Why aren't we working on a solution instead of just saying, trans athletes should just not compete? Everybody's got their politics, and it's awful and difficult. I'm just thankful for the people that are fighting for us — people who are trans and cis, and everyone else who’s fighting. We just have to keep this work up.

You’ll feel better as yourself rather than keeping that person hidden away

If I was born now, it'd be a heck of a lot different. I would be myself from much earlier on. If I could speak to my younger self, I would tell her: "Freaking go for it. It's not as bad as you think."

Now, I'm not living in Texas or Florida, where they're making these laws. I'm living in New York State and I'm working at a small liberal arts college in Northeast United States.

But I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. So would Missouri be the place to ‘freaking go for it’?

I don't know. But I think I would definitely explore a lot more. I would be a lot more honest with myself. I'd be a lot more honest with people around me.

I would tell my younger self that "It's going to be okay, you are going to be okay. You can be yourself. You are going to feel better as yourself than you are by keeping that person hidden away."