I started running probably in my late teens when I was around 17. My mom was a personal trainer, and she was studying Sports Therapy at university, and my dad ran too.

I wasn't a very happy teenager. I essentially went very crazy when I was 19 and ended up in a psychiatric ward, and I couldn't run anymore for various reasons: one, I was physically locked up; two, I was on a lot of meds, which meant I didn't have any energy.

So for about five years, I was not getting helped, and was given lots of different labels that weren't helpful either, during my early 20s. As I came off all the medications, I got a dog and did lots of walking.

I didn't take up running for a while, mostly because I would get very upset that I couldn't really do it anymore. I wasn't as fit and was very angry that it had been taken away from me. But when I was around 30 years old, I had this massive life-changing and spiritual experience when I went on a big hike up the mountain.

I’d gotten rid of my car as a result of lots of decisions I made and my world got really small. I couldn't get to the places very quickly, so I essentially just started running the downhills. It wasn't a situation where I was like “I'm gonna start running now.” I was just trying to get somewhere quicker. Then obviously, as I got fitter, I ran more than just the downhills — I ran some of the flats and then sometimes uphills.

I entered a trail marathon and just got quite obsessed with running. I was particularly interested in ultra running and running long distances. During all of that time, I came out as trans. So that coupled with running was a great way for me to look after myself.

Running has helped me focus on what my body can do rather than on what it’s not

Running has really helped my relationship with myself. It's taught me how to look after myself, which I wasn't particularly good at before. It’s helped me focus on what my body can do, rather than everything that it's not. It makes me look out for myself in other aspects of my life — I need to be able to sleep and eat well, or else I'm not going to get to run.

I live in a quiet rural place, and it's difficult to find LGBTQ+ people, especially trans people. For a while, I felt like I was the only trans person running about on the trails. I was lonely and wanted queer friends who ran. I knew I couldn't be the only one that's feeling this way. I knew that LGBT people, particularly trans and nonbinary people as a population, struggle a lot with physical and mental health. We're not great at looking after ourselves for lots of reasons.

So I set up Queer Runnings, a virtual running club. In rural areas, you can't really do an in-person run club because there aren’t enough people. A lot of Queer Running members are people who live in rural areas, who need the queer community and don't have it otherwise.

Finding a community that I didn't have before has certainly made me less alone. There are people I can trust and people I like. Before, I felt like I just didn't like people. What I realise now is that I was just hanging out with the wrong people.

When I was younger, I didn't know anyone who was trans. It would have been nice for something like Queer Runnings to exist because just finding other people is enough. A lot of the time, I think about how I probably wouldn't have ended up in the mess that I did if I had that support.

Through Queer Runnings, I hopefully get to help other people access the positive experiences running has brought for me.

When I’m running, who I am and who I like isn’t relevant to me having a great time

The thing about running is that it's an activity I do where the gender that I am is just completely irrelevant. It’s nice to have that because a lot of the time it is very relevant, and not really necessarily in a fun way.

When I'm out running in the hills or trails, who I am and who I like is just not even something that's even marginally relevant to me having a great time.

I don't want to say it's an escape, because it makes it sound like I have sort of a terrible time with my space, which I don't — I have in the past, but I don't anymore. But it's nice to have a little pocket of something where none of that really matters.

When I entered my first race, I got a lot of joy from the achievements — not so much from doing the race and the distance; but rather from how I started the training and how I saw it through to the end by doing the race. At the time, I wasn't seeing much stuff through to the end. I'm a neurodiverse person and I didn't know that at the time. So I would start a lot of things and not finish them. Or I would start things and not have the support to be able to finish them.

But with running and training, it's very simple. You show up, you do the run, and you just keep doing that over and over again. Then you do the race. It's a very simple thing that I was able to start to finish. That process of starting and finishing gave me a lot of joy.

I don't enter many races, mostly because I actually don't like races that much. I find them quite stressful. Instead, I like to go out running on my own or with my friends for very long periods of time. It’s very joyous to run in very beautiful places with some wonderful people. I love it.

I find races difficult because I don't know who the hell I'm running against

Races are really tricky for trans and nonbinary people in general. When I enter races, I enter in the male category, although I am very aware that I think I can't compete with the cis men. Some trans men probably could, but I started my transition quite late, and I'm just not quite able to compete with them. But that just might be me not being particularly confident, I don't know.

One of the reasons I find races difficult is because I don't know who the hell I'm running against. I definitely can't compete in the female category. I used to think that I didn't need a nonbinary category. I always thought that a nonbinary category needs to exist for people who identify as nonbinary.

But now I feel like a nonbinary category would be helpful.

I do worry that the nonbinary category could potentially be used to push trans women into these categories. Because if a trans man or a trans woman wants to enter into the nonbinary category, that's great. But if a trans man wants to compete with men who are cis, and a trans woman wants to compete with the women who are cis, then they absolutely should be able to.

I also don't like races because they are just stressful places. Particularly trail races, which are the ones I like, are really cis-men-heavy. There's a lot of cis men on the trail and really not very many women at all.

When I would go to races, I would just feel like I'm the only queer person there. That's not right.

We're currently working on putting together a survey to gather some data from queer people who are running and we want to be able to use that data to push for races to have nonbinary categories and to generally be more welcoming for queer people.

The booking systems used by races need to reflect nonbinary categories

While races are starting to put nonbinary categories, there’s often an issue with the system they use for their booking. While the race might have nonbinary categories, the system they use doesn't. And many races use the same system here in the UK.

These systems need to have a nonbinary category because if the race puts a nonbinary category in and the system doesn’t, it's just irrelevant. So it's not just about talking to race organisers, but also about talking to the companies that are providing the systems for these races.

Things like facilities are a huge barrier too, toilet-wise — if you don't feel like there's a toilet that you can use, that can be a deal-breaker for a lot of nonbinary people. And it's a simple fix. It shouldn't just be, "Oh, you can use whatever toilets you want and hopefully you won't get harassed."

A lot of these races use porto loos and there's no reason why they can't be gender neutral.

I often get messages from people in my inbox who have asked me, "I don't know what to do. When I enter races, people shout abuse at me. What should I do?"

And the answer is, "There's not much, which is terrible. You can go to the race directors to say what's happened. If it's really bad, go to the police."

But this shouldn't be happening, and there really should be something in place at these races to make sure that this harassment doesn't happen in the first place. There should be a specific procedure that you can go through or contacts that you can go to, to report something if it does happen.