I started my wrestling training in the summer of 2001, and I’ve wrestled all over Southern California, which seems to be more open towards a lot of different gender identities, so it’s mostly been a positive experience.

Wrestling has always been very gendered: they have ‘intergender wrestling matches’, or ‘ladies matches’ that tend to 'other' other genders and try to keep everything segregated.

I’m the first non-binary high desert champion and the first non-binary ability first champ, and I love to push the boundaries.

From the time I have been honest and open about my gender identity, I like seeing how a lot more people are realizing their possible misconceptions of a non-binary person or a trans person. They’re realizing that their ideas about us might not be the reality. They’re getting to know me as a person and I get to represent that in the locker room with other wrestlers, and in front of the crowd and audience.

As things progress in the wrestling world, we’re seeing that more matches are just being called ‘matches’ or ‘all-gender matches’ rather than being categorized as ‘intergender’ or ‘ladies’ matches. So they're trying to be more inclusive.

There was recently a show called 'Trans Grabs' where the whole card was trans and gender nonconforming wrestling talent. It’s so great that we’re seeing these opportunities come up.

I wrestle for a company in California that has all types of gender expressions and I’m just really glad to see a lot of that change for the positive. Every once in a while, we see some blowback in spaces that don't accept us, but I'm seeing that that hostility is getting shut down a lot more frequently.

[As told to @Ragi Gupta — continued tomorrow]