When people think of trans athletes, they usually think of trans women or trans feminine athletes, because they’re the ones who are perceived as a ‘threat’.

Trans men and masc athletes are often left out of the conversation. Or people are like, "You guys don't need extra rules. But trans women and femme athletes do."

It doesn't work that way. If you're going to impose policies, you need to impose equal policies for everybody without targeting us on the basis of gender.

As a trans man, I have the advantage of people being pleasantly surprised and not upset, because they don't feel that I'm a ‘competitive threat’.

I'm also not in the front of the pack, I'm usually in the middle. But because there's more of an evening-out of competition and ability levels in ultra running, it just doesn't stand out that much. It's not as controversial as it might be if I was winning a marathon.

People also have this misconception that it's very obvious if you're trans — that a trans man is a woman in men's clothing and vice versa.

I enjoy disrupting that stereotype and narrative.

If I'm in a race or something and eventually it comes out that I'm trans, people are typically surprised. I was running with this woman for maybe 20 miles or so, and she realized I was trans because of the bathroom thing and was like, "Wow, this whole time I didn't know."

I was like, "Well, why would you?"

Mostly, I purposely will not tell people I’m trans until later or maybe even never, because I want people to realize that odds are that you've met a trans person, interacted with a trans person, flirted with a trans person, and you just didn't know it.

Because, we are in fact, like regular human beings and the same goes for trans athletes.

We're just trying to do something that we're passionate about. And the only reason it becomes obvious is because of controversial policies and different levels of competition.

[As told to @Ragi Gupta — continued]