When I started running, it was just this thing that I could do on my own.

It wasn't until I joined the Seattle Front Runners that I started to think critically about the state of the running industry, and the way that gender was at play.

Every time I registered for a race, I had to either register as a man or a woman. I would be getting a t-shirt that's either a men's shirt or a women's shirt. The awards and prizes were categorized based on the men and women's divisions. So for folks who fall outside of that binary, a space didn't exist.

We know that people who exist outside of the binary have been around forever. How can we help the running industry evolve so that it can be inclusive of all gender identities?

There are so many ways we have yet to make this sport inclusive for BIPOC folks, disabled folks, and transgender and nonbinary folks.

Many people think that running is already an inclusive sport. They're like, "You just need to show up with a pair of shoes. We'll accept you and you can participate.”

But we know that's not the reality. There are so many marginalized communities out there who are still running into barriers when it comes to trying to access the sport.

I started thinking: What can I do to be an advocate not only for the non-binary folks in the industry, but the other folks who are being excluded? And how can we work together to move this industry forward?

My advocacy work really started about a year ago, when I thought, "I'm done. I'm not going to register for races anymore because you don't have a non-binary division."

That's where I then dove in. I started to instead email race directors and say, "Hey, I want to run your race, but I don't see my gender identity reflected here. Is there a way we can work to fix this?"

[As told to @Ragi Gupta — continued]