I grew up in Southern Orange County as a beach baby. I was always on weekend trips to the beach with my family and surfing was a natural progression for me. As an adult, I fell in love with the art of bodysurfing. I was spending a lot of time in the water, teaching people how to surf. It's easier to teach when you're fully submerged in the water, so bodysurfing came as a byproduct of being a surf instructor.

Once I started bodysurfing, I realized that there is an entire bodysurfing community that is competitive just like the surf community. There are associations all over California and worldwide, so I joined up with a local surfing organization, and have been competing since.

My first time competing was in 2018 before I came out as trans, so I competed in the women's division. I was excited to be so successful early on in my career, winning a handful of comps and getting ranked third in California, and third in the world bodysurfing contests of my age bracket. In 2019, I came out as non-binary and had top surgery. Ever since coming out and medically transitioning, I've slowly been feeling more comfortable presenting as a man, and a big part of switching divisions to the men's division was also how I wanted to be perceived in the world —as a man.

I think body surfing is a very inclusive sport, where gender doesn't really matter in terms of performance. I know this can be a heavily debated subject — whether or not certain characteristics are gendered. But all things aside, if we continue in a conversation with the binary that currently exists in sports, I think body surfing is a great sport equalizer where your performance is based on style, weight knowledge, and your understanding of the oceans’ swells and currents.

Some of those characteristically binary physical attributes such as strength and power, are kind of null if you don't understand the ocean.

Realizing how arbitrary ‘masculinity’ is in bodysurfing

I experience the most gender euphoria in bodysurfing. I think that comes from having the least amount of gender expectations — you're kind of amorphous in a giant wetsuit of rubber. When I bodysurf in competitions, I'm usually in a Speedo with no shirt —I don't pack and I don't experience any sort of gender dysphoria at all. I do feel a little exposed at times. But the ocean’s always been a safe place for me and I don't think twice about my own gender there.

The prevailing identity is of a body surfer — not that of a woman bodysurfer, or a man bodysurfer. Everybody just identifies as a body surfer in that space, so it's fantastic to see other body surfers treat you with the same level of respect no matter your gender.

I still feel almost prepubescent in my gender journey —I'm turning 39 and was around 33 when I started questioning my gender, while not fully understanding the differences in gender expression and gender identity. One thing that I've noticed with sport and bodysurfing is that pre-transition, I've always been masculine-presenting, and the ways I had socially expressed myself are still very similar. I want to be perceived in the world as more masculine, and have a hard time saying that because what does that even mean?

It's so arbitrary and subjective, and I guess I do fall victim to some of that ideology of what's traditionally masculine or feminine. But there's no other language to explain it at the moment. Bodysurfing helps me understand that: one, I do want to be perceived in the world as more masculine; and two, even within the men's division, how arbitrary some of those concepts of masculinity are.

All bodysurfers wear Speedos because of hydrodynamics. When you're in a group of surf guys playing with this concept of masculinity in very unintentional ways, they're specifically doing it for performance. It makes you question what messaging you're consuming, what it means to be masculine presenting, and what it means to not be masculine presenting.

Sports is a great equalizer when it comes to empathy

When I think of bodysurfing as a whole, I don't necessarily think of competition. A big part of that is because the body surfing community is extremely small and close-knit. With the handful of clubs that are in California, we all know each other. Every competitor has competed against one another for years, if not decades. We're all friends in and outside of the water.

When we think about it globally, it is still a smaller community compared to other sports, so through social media, we've been able to create a tight-knit, global community of people who are all passionate about bodysurfing and getting soaked in the water.

I think why people love the World Cup and why it's such a global sport, is because the sport itself is a medium for accessing so many different types of emotions. It is a great equalizer when it comes to empathy. You may not watch soccer, but if you watched the game where Morocco, a really small country, beat a powerhouse that is Spain, you would immediately feel empathy for the Moroccan team. It's impossible not to feel their joy, and also the sadness and disappointment of the opposing team.

In terms of bodysurfing, I can watch somebody bodysurf for the first time and immediately empathize with how scared or excited they are when they catch their first wave. Everybody feels all those emotions, no matter what your gender is.

Because our community is so small, we all readily support one another when we are experiencing the challenges of a big surf, gnarly weather patterns, or big tournaments. We can immediately relate to those learners who are getting worked over, disappointed, frustrated, really excited and just can't wait to get in the water. It's something that everybody within that community understands.

Sports is an equation of talent you're given and the effort you put in

When it comes to competition, bodysurfing is a gendered sport, just like the majority of sports. That's just prevalent in how sports are run. It's going to be hard to deconstruct that binary and understand these concepts of ‘fairness’.

Still, bodysurfing is probably one of the most inclusive water sports in ocean sports. Some divisions happen to be open, and I hope to see at least one open division in every competition. It would be fantastic to test the sport and to see that anybody can compete at any level, depending on how much work they put in and what their given talents are.

Sports and athleticism in general is an equation of how much talent you're given and how much effort you put into it. I have a feeling that bodysurfing can highlight that in a positive way.

What I hope for other money-making sports like boardsurfing, is that they can follow suit with the trends that bodysurfing is spreading or inciting.

With body surfing competitions, there's no prize money. Yes, people do compete and it's fantastic to win. But I think most clubs can agree that the competitions are really just small reunions throughout the year, where everybody gets to body surf. It’s about pumping money into these clubs that promote body surfing to more people. The competitions aren't necessarily driving money towards sponsorships, towards more competitions or even towards the growth of the sport in elite, Olympic or pro-level activities.

The sport is like a nonprofit, where all the money keeps getting funneled back into those clubs that promote younger people to experience the water in a purely joyous way.

I think more sports could probably spend more time doing that kind of community building and outreach, and I hope bodysurfing can lead the way in that sense.

Honing into my truth made me my most integrated self

My younger self had no concept of what gender identity was. I only had a concept of when I felt most comfortable, and how I felt most comfortable. If I were to go back to my younger self, I would say that whatever I was feeling at the time, when I felt that euphoria, that I was onto something, that I was intrinsically right. Even though I didn't have the language to describe what was happening.

I spent much of my adulthood pushing away my sense of inner-knowing in order to be more acceptable, before ultimately coming back to that truth, realizing what that meant, and then acting out of that truth and really honing in on my own authentic self.

That is when I became the most happy and complete and integrated person, who can walk around knowing that I'm seeing my best self every day in a world that needs people to be their best selves every day. If I were to extrapolate that out for use now, I'd say lean into that discomfort, those uncomfortable feelings and that questioning, because you're onto something. The more you lean into it, the more that truth is going to be revealed to you.

And for adults surrounding those kids who are grappling with this sense of identity that is being attacked on a national level, I would like to say that trans youth, non-binary youth, gender non-conforming and questioning youth – they're not wrong. Making this a political battle and a cultural war where people are right or wrong, is detrimental in ways that I can't even fully articulate. I wish that adults would just trust kids for what they say, and would know that if somebody comes out to them or asks them about gender identity or questions their identity, that it is a completely valid question.

We should be urging those types of questions more instead of imposing what we believe.