I identify as non-binary and maybe also as trans non-binary – I don't know, my relationship with gender is interesting. Somedays, I feel slightly fluid, but most days I find myself on the more masculine end of things.

I'm slowly learning how to embrace that because it wasn't until recently that I was allowed to do so. The more I explore it, the more I find myself on the more masculine end of things. I think sports is one of the first things that made me realize that, even before I had any language or any knowledge of what non-binary or trans was.

I started martial arts at 10 years old, and I'd been in a lot of different sports – basketball, softball, soccer, hockey, and water polo. My whole family is very active, but it wasn't until I landed in martial arts, that I found myself.

When people see me on the mat versus interacting with me in person, they tell me that I'm an entirely different human. I was able to find a piece of my humanity on the mat, which I didn't get anywhere else. We all wore the same uniform and the only thing that was different was what rank we were, and that really didn't matter. It was just a belt to hold up your pants and it had a color on it to help your teachers know what to teach you. But I struggled with how they separated classes. I absolutely despised being put with the girls and wanted to be with the boys. I wanted to be doing the same things as the boys, learning what they were learning, doing the more active warm-ups, and the more active drills that they were doing.

I didn't want to be a boy, and made that very clear from a very young age but still wanted to be over there with them. That was confusing for a lot of people, so once I hit a certain age, I started to just try to accept that that was never going to happen.

Things changed when I got into college when I got into a class taught by my mother-in-law. She is cis but is also part of our community, and made it a safe space for everybody to actually be who they want to be on the mat. She just didn't put limitations on anything. I would be paired up to work with the biggest, burliest guy on the mat and that was normal. I would be paired with people my size and that was normal. It would be men, women or anybody.

We’re both neurodivergent, and with her being part of our community, she just did things differently than the standard. Her personality is very big. I don't do a good job of articulating it, but if you meet her, you’ll know exactly what that means.

The space she created allowed me to explore new pieces of martial arts that I hadn't before.

If I competed against boys and won, their parents would be really upset 

When I was younger, I would go to competitions and there would be nobody of my weight, age, or rank. So I would have to compete with the boys. Up until a certain age, they did let me do that and oftentimes I won.

The parents were really upset about all of that and it would become this huge controversy. Once I would come back from those competitions, I would think, "If I'm competing with them, why can't I train with them here?"

Physically, girls and boys were held to a different standard in warm-ups. And when we would train, they would pair us based on gender – somebody assigned female at birth with somebody assigned female at birth, and somebody assigned male at birth with somebody assigned male at birth.

When the boys would work with the girls, they would always tell the boys, "Watch your strength, watch your speed, make sure to tone it down."

They would never say that to the girls. It didn't make much sense. The boys didn't even really agree with that, either. They would sometimes walk away and be like, "Well, that doesn't make sense. We're doing martial arts. We're going to train like it's real, right? And that means everybody, right?"

They would tell the boys: “Do 50 jumping jacks, 50 push-ups, 50 of everything.”

But they always held girls to a lesser standard: “If you can get to 50 then good, but don't even try to shoot for that. Just do 25.”

It was always about half. I always did everything the boys did, as did most of the girls in my class, which is another reason why it didn't make much sense.

In my mother-in-law’s classes, if you have a partner, you rotate all the way through. Everybody trains with everybody, everybody knows everybody.

It's not safe to not train for the real world – we shouldn’t be hurting each other, but we need to make it believable so that if something happens outside of the dojo, we can be safe. Because when you go out on the street, humans are humans – they're going to be big, they're going to be small, they're going to be heavy, they're going to be all of the things because that's what humans are.

Us neurodivergent kids lumped into each other in the dojo to reduce being at-risk

As far as being neurodivergent goes, I was very angry in childhood. There were a lot of personal, familial things going on for me as well, but I also knew that there was something "wrong" with me in the way that I learned things and the way that I did things.

But it wasn't wrong. It was just different, and I was not the only one. There were a couple of other kids who were also neurodivergent in my dojo. We all lumped together when we were training because if we were training together, it meant that there was less risk that we would get stopped for doing something weird, different, wrong, or not fast enough.

We just needed more hands-on training. Sometimes we needed to watch somebody do the moves and do it right next to them, while looking in the mirror, instead of listening to them say, "Okay, this is the move. You're going to move the left foot back and then do this with your right arm."

We needed the entire connection of audio, kinesthetic, and visual, as opposed to just having them verbally tell us what to do and then walking off of the mat.

In quite a few dojos, the instructor tells you what you do and leaves, while their higher-ranking students watch the classroom.

During those times, it was us, neurodivergent folks, kind of in the corner, all trying to get as close to the mirror as possible so that we could really see what we were doing and we were all helping each other and putting our hands on each other like "No put your fist here. No, you're foot needs to slightly turn" and we would actually grab the foot and move it as opposed to just pointing and telling.

Martial arts was a gateway to what I know now to be gender euphoria

Martial arts gatewayed to what I know now to be gender euphoria. If you talk to people, they will tell you that I'm a different person on the mat.

It's the one place where I could actually be who I was supposed to be. I don’t need to be my deadname and all of that. I'm a martial artist stepping onto the mat, or somebody who trains in martial arts stepping onto the mat – and that is universal for everyone. That was all I ever really wanted – to know that I'm human like everybody else. That was the one place where my neurodivergence, and whatever I was feeling about being gender nonconforming or non-binary, it didn't matter.

I was just free to put on my uniform, put on my belt and go be somebody who was training in martial arts. That was the one place that I gained confidence.

Outside of the mat, I'm a very small person. I am 100 pounds on a good day and I'm barely hitting five feet. I've been very small my whole life, so I was bullied a lot – especially being somebody who's this size with a voice that’s a bit deeper than people would expect it to be. I was always very aggressive when I was younger. So the confidence that I found on the mat alleviated that aggression in me. It helped me break off that chip I had on my shoulder when I left the dojo.

It alleviated the feeling that I had that I just kind of wanted to fight everybody. When I was outside of the dojo before I really started learning martial arts. I really just had this underlying urge. I was angry and something was wrong and I wanted to fight the world and martial arts alleviated that for me, which is pretty amazing.

If it hadn't been for martial arts, I do believe that I would be an entirely different person and probably be a very unhealthy person. I might not even know exactly who I am at this point.

Many martial arts schools are Good Old Boys Clubs measuring what's in their pants

The Dojo that I go to is called The Speakeasy, and we've created that safe haven there. We maintain that you're not going to find the location or going to be in that place unless we know that you're safe to be in that place.

We're finding that now we're gaining more non-binary and trans folks, and people of different walks of life, wanting to be training with us, rather than going to the multiple martial arts schools that we have in our county.

I don't like saying this because it hurts to say it, but it really feels like a lot of martial arts schools are a ‘Good old boys club’, and still very segregated.

They’re not measuring their strength, they're not measuring their skill. They're measuring what's in their pants with one another and that's really unfortunate.

I recently watched a professional high-level Judo match between two women and one of them had hair like mine. She won and the comments section was flooded with transphobia, asking if that woman was a man, claiming that she was “on something” and questioning why she was competing.

This is coming from the martial arts community that I am in. They may not be training with me, and we make sure that we don't train those types of people. But it is still very, very prevalent.

You have people like Joe Rogan at the helm of sports media, and that's dangerous. You have people like Andrew Tate. You've got people leading that narrative of "Men belong on this side. Women belong on this side. Men are stronger than women."

All of these super super outdated, toxically masculine and patriarchal standards. It takes places like where I'm training, to just put their foot down and say, 'That's not how we train here."

I don't want to be in the women's division. It wouldn’t be true to myself.

Similar to the trans-affirming hair salon Strands For Trans, we need something for dojos.

We need to be able to know that we're not going to be harassed because of what we're wearing. If we come onto the mat and we're binding and something happens, we need to know that our partner won’t suddenly turn into a potential opponent and that we're not going to be ousted from our own dojo community because we are the ones that were "the problem".

In my own community, it is getting a little bit better, but the people who are in charge and have the biggest microphones in our martial arts community, are currently not helping.

We need more people who are doing trans-affirming storytelling projects that can get truthful information and education out there. We need people to put names and faces to athletes, where we're humanizing ourselves and humanizing our community.

Otherwise, a bunch of people from the other side who have never met us, are demonizing us.

Mainstream narratives about trans and non-binary athletes, need to understand that we're simply human beings. I understand where non-binary is concerned, that it can be confusing for a lot of people.

There needs to be more outspoken education and information and community where people sit down and speak one-on-one with trans and non-binary athletes in their sport because it's going to be different across the board.

For non-binary folks, at least for myself, it would be cool to see the choice to choose, at the very least. Because we're not men, we are not women. But if those are the only two categories that we have to be in, at least give us a choice to enter the one that feels right for us.

I train in martial arts but I don't want to compete, because I don't want to be in the women's division. I don’t want to be seen by thousands of people as a woman, I don’t want to be praised as a woman. Even in defeat, it wouldn't be comfortable, it wouldn’t be true to myself.

Without the option to self-determine, it can be extremely dysphoric and dangerous

It might be controversial but I think a non-binary division where those who don't want to compete in men’s or women’s divisions, can create that choice to be with like-minded and like-spirited individuals, regardless of rank or anything else.

It would definitely take a while but I don't think it's impossible to get that together. I can't speak much for any other sports because I know it would be different for every sport, but people should have the option to self-determine.

Because right now we don't have the option and when we don't have the option and we're placed to compete in a space that is not true to us, it is extremely dysphoric whether you win or you lose.

It’s also dangerous, because if somebody sees that you are identifying a different way and then you compete against one of their family members or one of the people that they are a fan of and you win, that actually is dangerous, because what if they're like, "Well, that's not really a woman. Why was that person competing? I want them tested. I want this or that."

And then all of these extra unnecessary arguments and attacks in certain circumstances happen. There needs to be more safety, more knowledge, more information, education, the option to choose. Those are the things, in my opinion, that are lacking currently.

If you're younger, just know that there is so much time to find your community

If I could go back in time, I would just pat myself on the shoulder and say:

It really is going to be okay. It's not going to be easy. It's not going to be without pain. It's not going to be without turmoil, but you are that strong. You are stronger than that as a human spirit, and the human spirit is where you find your strength. It doesn't matter what the labels are. You will find your people. It's not easy. It's going to take time but for everybody – no matter who you are, if you're younger, just know that there is so much time to find your community.

It may be in the city that you live in, it may not be. It may be that you find an online community first, it may be that you find just one person. But you do have a community. There is a community out there for you. You are not the only trans athlete You are not the only non-binary athlete. You are not the only intersex athlete. You are not the only one that is there and even if it feels that way, just know that there are people out there.

They may not be right there next to you, but we are here and we are many and we are not going anywhere. No matter what society or government or whomever tries to erase us, we haven't been erased. You just have to look. You just have to be patient with yourself. Be gentle with yourself. And the right people will come to you in time. Nobody is alone.