I describe myself as a trans femme person, but if we want to get into the nitty gritty, I would first say I'm Black and then I'm queer.

From the queerness you then go into Black femininity, but not necessarily and exclusively femininity. I fluctuate around the non-binary space, but I'm more partial to femininity – but not always.

Wrestling came along back when I was in high school, when one of my friends who was a wrestler brought me along for a show. I got on the card and I've been wrestling more or less ever since.

Wrestling has helped my queerness by making me more comfortable with the physical form, and more comfortable with being open with my gender.

As a pro-wrestler, you have to be able to own who you are, to accept that some people aren't going to like you, to deal with that, and then improve from it.

Following Judith Butler’s idea of performativity and gender, grappling with the idea of performance has gotten a lot easier – that feeling of being on stage to play a role.

But as a wrestler, I don't just have to play those expected gender roles. I can yell back, I can confirm, I can deny, I can express myself more vocally – not just in painting my nails or wearing my hair long, but also in explicitly stating myself.

Navigating gender in America was very interesting. I was much more masculine over there, much more "boy".

But since I've been in Korea in the past few years, I've been pretty openly trans – something just wasn’t clicking with the masculine terms that were used for me. My wrestling nickname here is the ‘Queer Queen of Korean Wrestling’.

So it's a very expressive statement, a very clear declaration of not just who I am as far as my name, but also who I am as a person.

[As told to @Ragi Gupta — continued tomorrow]