I'm not super competitive and I hate competitive situations. That isn't to say I don't occasionally race.

I like racing, because it's a different mindset. It's a different type of river running, and that's the main thing I get out of it. I'm not looking for first place.

The scary thing is now if I race, I would be in contention for first place, depending on my strength and skill and how much paddling I've actually done. I could be in contention for first place or second place in women's categories.

And so the whole trans athletes sports debate suddenly became very real for me when I was like, "Oh, yeah. I could actually be in that category."

Kayaking is a space that I've never associated with gender at all. One of the things that I least like about sports in general, is what I refer to as the “bro culture” in basketball, football.

It has an attitude of how, "You got to suck it up and be strong and never show emotion" and all that crap.

For kayaking, it's terrifying. I learned to articulate this better as I started teaching. If you're brand new to kayaking, the first thing we're going to do is get you on a boat, not with a skirt -- typically you'd wear like a neoprene skirt to keep the water out of the boat.

But we don't even put that on and you go out in a little pond or flatwater section where it's super safe. And you flip over out of the boat and you learn how to get out of the boat when you're upside down.

It can be really terrifying for a lot of people to be upside down with their legs encased in a plastic boat.

And what I disliked about the bro culture in kayaking was how they don't actually admit that that's terrifying -- being flipped over by the current unexpectedly, can be terrifying to somebody who's not used to it and hasn't built confidence in themselves.

[As told to @Ragi Gupta — continued]