I've been swimming since I was nine. I got into a bunch of different sports when I was younger and swimming just kind of stuck because I don't like running and I don't like getting hit in the head with stuff. So swimming is pretty good for avoiding both of those things.

I got pretty serious about swimming when I got to high school. All my best friends from high school were folks who I met and interacted with mostly through swimming. I met my girlfriend of three and a half years from being on the same swim team.

I had some great experiences with swimming in high school, and carried on swimming in college at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. When I got there, I was learning that I was going to be the first transgender athlete at my university, which was kind of scary. But my swim coach was really supportive and willing to just learn. My team was also very supportive and open, and I didn’t have any problems with them. I did face some challenges, but in terms of positive experiences within my team, I felt very accepted, which was very nice.

Being the first transgender athlete to compete at WPI was also scary because I had no one to base my decisions off of, or to talk to about my experiences.

It was wonderful that my coach let me take the reins on doing what made me feel comfortable. But when no one has come before you, it's hard to try to make what someone might describe as the ‘good decision’ or the ‘best decision’ for not only myself, but for whoever came after me.

Swimming as an experience just blurs the line of gender expression

Swimming might not be super friendly to trans athletes in the sense that everyone's walking around in the speedo, so people who have dysphoria about their body can be affected pretty deeply.

At the same time, swimming is one of the only sports where the men and women's teams all practice together, and all our team events are mostly together. We're basically one team besides when we compete as the men's and women's team. So I think that swimming as an experience just blurs the line of gender expression somewhat because we get so used to basically seeing everybody's bodies, being in close contact and just all practicing together.

I know some of the non-binary swimmers and divers definitely feel the very binary nature of sports itself in this swimming, but I feel like it's made easier by the fact that swimming is one of the few sports that can feel like we're all one team regardless of gender.

Swimming definitely has issues with toxic masculinity and surveillance as well, despite the fact that we are functionally one team. The heavy emphasis on gender roles is holding sports back from being a space of comfort as opposed to surveillance. When sports teams are separated by gender, a lot of the coaches and athletics staff tend to use very gendered environments and language to hype up.

They’ll be hyping up men's teams by saying, "Oh, you're all strong, tough men." Or hyping up the women's team by saying, "Oh, you're all strong, independent women."

In my experience with sports, gendered roles tended to be enforced by both the structure of the teams and also by the language of athletic staff. Only adding on to that is the controversy of transgender people in sports and how much of a divisive issue that has become. That has just made sports a very like binary space that doesn't really allow for the idea that not everyone on the men's team is a man or not everyone on the women's team is a woman.

With transitioning it feels like my sport doesn’t want me in it anymore

The restrictions and debates banning trans athletes from sports have impacted my relationship with swimming quite a bit. While presenting as a woman who was lanky and athletically built, it felt like I was in a sport that I was pretty good at. My body in a lot of ways was built for it. But with transitioning, it’s almost felt that my sport doesn't really want me in it anymore given how difficult it has become with addition to the regulations around it.

A lot of people are very vocal about not wanting transgender people in sports, which has changed my relationship with swimming.

When I was working on developing policy for the athletics department at my school, the governing body of collegiate athletics in the US – the NCAA – announced that they're making major changes after the success of Lia Thomas. Not only did that throw a wrench in the hard work I had put into creating an accepting space and making policies to help other transgender athletes at my own school, but it also affected me personally.

That was a very clear example that these governing bodies don't actually care about the fairness of sports. They just don't think that transgender people should exist, and if transgender people are going to exist, the governing bodies can't let us be successful in anything.

I feel like there's a lot of controversy around whether or not transgender people have an advantage when competing in sports. I think a huge step towards transgender people seeing being seen as completely equal, would be if people started to accept that whether or not gender gives people an ‘advantage’ in sports, it's really no different from anyone else having an advantage or disadvantage in sport. Ultimately it doesn't really matter.

I don’t want to say that the fact that I’m swimming in college is a miracle, but when I decided to transition I’d actually planned on quitting swimming entirely despite the fact that I love the sport.

When I told my coach from high school, he dedicated himself to making sure I would be able to keep swimming, which changed my life. Since then, I've been doing a lot with educating people because being trans and being a trans athlete is a very hot button issue. Throughout my years at school, I helped develop an LGBT+ policy within the athletics department, and have taught workshops, which was a pretty wonderful opportunity.

I'm so glad that people around me were so willing to want to learn from me. But it can also be tiring to have to be the educator of my own identity.

Although I've come to really like being an educator, sometimes I can't help but think what I could have been if I continued to have the same relationship that I had with my sport as a cisgender person does.

Whatever feels most comfortable for you is going to be the best decision

When I first joined the team, I was the only out transgender athlete at the school. Since then, a lot more transgender athletes have either come out or joined, especially the swim team.

Being around my friends and being around other transgender athletes in my situation has been a huge support and boost. Finding time to enjoy the things that I still love and finding ways to improve myself really helps just being able to identify parts of the relationship that have stayed consistent with my sport.

Since I have joined the team, I've seen a lot more transgender athletes and I would like to see even more trans people coming into sports and feeling comfortable enough to participate.

I probably would tell young trans athletes that whatever feels most comfortable for you is going to be the best decision. No matter if you feel like you're making things more difficult for other people, or putting yourself in an awkward situation. Whatever feels most comfortable for you is is the best path to take.