I've played sports my entire life. I was the swimming and tennis captain, and started playing volleyball during my senior year. I carried on playing club volleyball for the men's team before I transitioned at the University of Washington.

Growing up, I wasn't a great representative of the queer community. I wasn't that person who is welcoming and advocating for everyone. I was an out athlete in high school but had a very closed-minded idea of gender and gender expression, because I didn’t have the best representation or interpretation of gender with all the toxic masculinity in sports.

That's something I like to share because I don't want people to get this idea that I've just always been an advocate who understands gender. I had this idea of what it was to be – at that time – a gay man, and didn’t want to be stereotypical in terms of whatever that meant in 2008. I was that person who would be like "I am gay, but not that gay".

It's unfortunate how there's always this innate need in society to have someone below you. I wasn't maybe the nicest person in high school to the other one or two queer people who were playing sports at school. I used to have a lot of shame around not being the representative I needed to be at those ages. But I also know that I did what I had to do to survive. I had to blend in, I had to code-switch, I had to do all these things to feel safe in a sports environment.

A lot of that also had to do with being raised Mormon and having parents who were immigrants – I'm a first-generation Philippine American, so I’m already so multi-hyphenated. I struggled so much with identity and where I belonged, always feeling like I had nowhere to go.

Whether I was playing basketball, swimming team or tennis – all spaces were predominantly made of cis-het males.

I think that just existing as a queer person is a form of protest

I understand that for some people, it does take time to unpack the norms that have been ingrained, even if you're trans yourself or queer. I'm still learning stuff every day. I'm always trying to expand my horizons and I think that's the biggest thing: as long as you're moving forward, that's all one can really ask for.

I'm not asking for perfection. I'm not asking for people to understand the way that I express my gender. But I do expect that if you are going to be an ally and advocate, that you are working towards that.

I was in a smaller town just outside Eugene, Oregon, and I didn't meet a trans person in person till I was in my 20s. Getting out and exposing myself to different stories really helped me, and that's why I'm so open with my journey, and why I interview queer and trans athletes to get people's stories out there.

Because that's what really helps people understand our community and sometimes understand themselves.

It’s been really important for me to not be afraid to share my entire story, including parts I'm not very proud of. I don't think we ever fully come to an absolute realization – it's always a journey and I'm always learning stuff about myself and about identity.

And it's not for everyone. Some people protest, fight legislation, and are really outspoken. But for others, it's a very private and personal thing that they don't have the emotional capital for.

I think that just existing as a queer person is a form of protest. Just being alive and existing, is your way of helping us move forward – whether you're outspoken about it or not. Your journey is your journey.

There is no right or wrong way. There's just your way.

As an athlete who transitioned, I had to learn my sport all over again

Being in spaces with trans athletes made me realize just the amount of change and the amount of oppression and hurdles that people had to face. It's hard enough for a trans person to exist in professional and social worlds; on top of that, we’re not able to find ourselves reflected in these worlds because they’re so predominantly masculine and male-dominated — even in women's sports, everything about being a woman is dictated by cis-het men.

Not only are trans athletes facing the physical changes that their body goes through in terms of identity, but they are also having to wrestle with relearning how their body moves through their sport, which is a whole different sphere.

As an athlete, when I transitioned, I felt like I almost had to learn my sport all over again, because I had to readjust to the limitations within my body. There are a lot of stereotypes and misinformation being spread about what it means to be a trans athlete and the "advantages and disadvantages" of being a trans athlete. By being in spaces with other trans athletes, I got to see what it means to disprove these stereotypes in person and what it means to overcome them, which helped me prepare myself for my own journey.

Even if I hadn't realized it yet – when my egg hadn't cracked – I had people who might not have shown me the entire path, but showed me where the path could go and what it could look like. I had to learn exactly what that meant for me.

I'm one of those trans people who doesn’t think they were born in the wrong body. I think I was born exactly how I was supposed to be born, and I wanted to reclaim that. For some people that's not the same. Do I have dysphoria still? Absolutely. But I think that I am on this journey for a reason and I've become an even more resilient athlete and resilient person because of my journey.

Misinformation about trans athletes erases the wide gambit of what being a human is

With trans feminine people, there are so many misnomers claiming that “We're taller, we have more bone density, we have bigger lung capacity so we are innately going to be better athletes.”

There have always been controversies with trans bodies, and because trans masculine athletes are thought of as 'AFAB' competing against 'AMAB' athletes, many cis-het people aren't intimidated by trans masculine athletes because they're like, "Okay, they're on testosterone, but they have disadvantages from tending to be shorter and to have a less muscular build".

What people don't realize is that there's such a huge wide variety of humans. There are plenty of AFAB people who are taller, faster, and more physically imposing than me. These misconceptions erase that wide gambit of what being a human is.

I'm not a trans medicalist. I strongly believe you don't need to have surgeries, change your name, or change anything about you to be trans. It's about who you are, not how you present. But for many people like myself, surgeries and hormones, are part of our journey. And their effect on my athleticism was immediate: my stamina, muscle mass, agility – all were no longer there. I've slowly worked to get some of that back, but it was hard. Not being able to jump as high, hit as hard or run as fast, was more of a readjustment than I thought it’d be.

As an athlete, I'm used to pushing myself, and I had to re-evaluate things and get into a whole different headspace of, "I have limitations that I didn't have before, but it's worth it because I'm in my body and this is where I'm supposed to be."

After I transitioned, I felt like I needed to sink into myself and I hated that

Most people think that there isn't a lot of lag in athletic abilities for trans people, but it was pretty profound for me. I had to relearn a lot of volleyball just because I couldn't just rely on athleticism anymore. It's already so hard to exist outside of sports as a trans person navigating this society, that it's even more complicated when you add sports to it.

I hate the word ‘passing’, but it is a reality for trans people to be or feel safer when they pass. So, it's the mind gymnastics of, "Okay, I want to pass and I want to play my sport. I'm a competitive person. I don't like losing. But do people think I'm winning because I'm trans?"

At the beginning of it, I felt like I could never win because if I won, there'd be an asterisk next to my win, even though it's a team sport. But at the same time, I don't want to just half-ass it. I don't want to not give my all because I'm worried that people are going to clock me, or people are gonna think that I'm only good because I'm trans.

It took me a while for me to get over that, where even the first time I played in a women's team, I didn't want to stand out. Before I transitioned, I always wanted to stand out. I always wanted to be the best. I wanted to be the loudest. I wanted to be the most out there.

After I transitioned, I wanted to almost sink into myself. I wanted to make myself smaller and I hated that. I don't ever want people to see that. People know me as this person who’s out there, who's loud and proud, and I've always wanted to be the person that I needed when I was growing up.

I don't want people to think that if you transition, you need to strip yourself in order to fit in.

To any queer kids out there, I want you to know: No one knows you like you

If I could travel back in time, I would tell my younger self to believe in herself and to just trust herself. For a lot of my journey, I didn't advance when I think I could have, just because I was so worried about what people would think or what I was raised to think. I was so multi-hyphenated. I was raised Mormon, in a predominantly white community. I was queer and I didn't have a sense of who I was supposed to be.

So I latched on to society, and I latched on to what I thought I was supposed to be. I think that if I could have trusted myself and sought people who are like me, my journey could have been a lot easier. I don't regret anything and I'm very happy for the journey that I went on, despite all the trauma that I had to go through.

But it makes such a difference to have faith in yourself, and if I could talk to any queer kids out there, I would say, "No one knows you like you. If you just trust in yourself and find people like you and know that you're not alone, everything's gonna be okay."

I know some people are very science-data driven. I'm definitely more of an ethos-centered person. I could read all these scientific studies and I’ve obviously learnt a lot from from, but I really learned the most and was inspired most by seeing other people's stories, hearing other people's stories and witnessing it myself.

It took a while for me to feel comfortable being my full self. I really latched on to my chosen family within the sports realm, so that I could commit to myself. With them, I knew I could present a certain way, act a certain way, play a certain way, and just not have to think about it.

Sports is my safe place and I want to make sure it’s accessible to other athletes

I started transitioning just over two years ago in the middle of the pandemic in 2020. I haven't been able to play a lot of volleyball after that, just because of the general state of the world. We're at an unprecedented time as far as anti-trans legislation goes, especially when it comes to queer youth and trans youth and many others who are athletes.

Sports is my safe place. Sports is my haven. Sports is my go-to. It’s where I release and get away from the world. I want to make sure that space is accessible for other athletes, whether they're kids or adults. I think that as I'm playing less just because my body's getting older, I am transitioning (no pun intended) into a more facilitating role. I'm spreading the word, sharing my journey and advocating more.

I'm a board member of the North American Gay Volleyball Association, which is technically a men's league, but open to all genders. As part of the board, I'm able to make moves, so we’re expanding to become more inclusive. We're pushing towards having a Women's League, and I use the word ‘women’ loosely just because with the United States Association there's either men's or women's.

Within the expansion of the North American Gay Volleyball Association, we are not policing gender at all. Our bylaws, rules and regulations, will be written so that we're not gonna police who considers themselves a woman when it comes to hormones, surgeries, or other forms of gender-affirming care. We're not in that business. We just want to create a safe place for trans athletes, for women, for whoever wants to play sports and be surrounded by queer people.

We need to be taking care of our trans youth and our trans people

I hope we can get to a point where everyone has access to sports. It was so powerful to see an out trans athlete like Lia Thomas compete and win the NCAA Division I national championship. But at the same time, I was so drained to see the hate that was directed towards her and how the media handled it. I can't imagine what it would be like for her or any high school trans athlete.

I think that more representation is really important, but it all starts with access to healthcare for kids and adults. Once we can get that, and educate people on trans health, it will expand to sports and schools. We need more accurate information to be put out there, and I've been working on a project with another one of my core board members at NAGVA, where we're interviewing queer and trans volleyball athletes.

In an ideal world, we should just be athletes competing, and with some sports, it's really easy to make that happen. For example, with wrestling, if you weigh in a few ways, you make the array and then you compete.

Ending gender in general is kind of the end all be all, but that seems like such a faraway concept. It’s the ultimate goal no matter how many generations it takes because we all know that gender is just this concept that was socially constructed. Ending it will take a lot of baby steps, it will take really a long time. But till then, giving equal access to everyone, especially kids is so important.

As an adult, you still have access to certain resources that you don't have when you're younger. We need to make sure that kids have access to healthcare and to a safe place to compete as an athlete or just exist as a queer person. We need to be taking care of our trans youth and our trans people.