It's so interesting because I came to running really as something that brought me joy.
And as I started to get older, I started to come to terms with my own queerness,
my identity as a queer person, and then later my understanding of myself as trans.
And it felt like in that struggle to understand myself, I was also kind of pushed out of my sport.
And that sport being that sort of, like, place where I could go ground myself,
it felt really challenging to try to both be trans and be an athlete at the same time.
As you can, you know, see and hear in the media, there's a lot of demonization of trans athletes.
So starting to sort of grapple with how do I transition and still run.
It was a really dark time for me, being forced to confront that question of,
like, how do I be who I am and do what I love at the same time?
And why, by virtue of my identity, am I not allowed to do that?
Number one thing,
I'm thinking when I'm thinking about breath and I'm thinking about stress and heart rate and things like that,
trans athletes are so often, you know, accused of having an unfair advantage.
I'm very stressed out.
It is very stressful to even show up.
So I would say that it's perhaps an unfair disadvantage.
Humming.
It's something a lot of us do while we're doing simple everyday things like folding laundry,
sweeping the floor, taking a shower.