I think of myself as trans feminine. But gender is something that is always moving. Some days I feel like I'm everything, all genders at once. Some days I feel like I'm a consciousness.

I was 12 years old when I started going to a single-sex school. I wasn’t very athletic before, but the only sort of social currency I had in that school was from playing a sport.

Sports were like a very dominant part of the school culture. I knew that if I participated, it would give me some way to at least not attract negative attention for who I was, which was something that was already happening and going on.

So I joined the track team on a whim. I was like, "I can't throw a ball. I'm not very coordinated. But I know that I can run – I've raced my friends at summer camp."

It was the first year they were doing track for middle schoolers, and I thought I'll give it a try. Not only did I turn out to be good at it, but it was also something that I was seeing steady improvement in.

The more that I would practice, the more I would show up, I would notice, "Oh, I have new muscles or my body is going faster than it used to."

At the same time, I was starting to amass a group of peers around me at my school, which was something that I didn’t have before. I knew I could walk down the hall with people who were not thinking terrible things about me or going to say something awful.

I had allies and was starting to actually see myself less as an 'other', which played a big role in getting me to stick with running.

During the pandemic, I joined a queer running group in New York City, and running again became my source of community, when I needed one outside of bars, outside of apps, and these toxic, transactional ways of meeting people.

[As told to @Ragi Gupta — continued]