When people are being really angry about trans athletes in the media, it creates a licence for everyone to exclude trans people from coming into their sports spaces, especially in contact sports.

This fear-mongering behaviour does have a real impact on how the community is treated, because people become more likely to commit a hate crime against trans people.

We need to understand how these different aspects overlap to impact how we treat people.

They’re making us out to be a threat when we're not. You're not endangered by a trans person.

People would think that I would have had a hard time as a trans bodybuilder, but behind the scenes of these competitions, I’ve found a real sense of camaraderie, brotherhood, and sisterhood in my conversations with cisgender bodybuilders.

There was a lot more support than I believed there was, and sometimes you got to be in that space to change hearts and minds. If you're not there, then they can't feel your energy in real life and are just oblivious.

But when you are amongst other people even just for day to day, having noninvasive general conversations, it takes out this element of fear, because a lot of this society is pushing the fear on everybody.

I don't have all the answers in terms of policies or anything. But I do think we need an openness that isn't currently there. When the pandemic happened, everyone understood the importance of exercise in mental health.

As trans people, we have a lot of things going on, because of how society treats us. So it's even more important that we have access to sports. Because it can be a great way of releasing some of that stress or it can be a really empowering thing and helps with our mental health, especially while we are probably on crazy waiting times for gender-affirming care and dealing with other external obstacles.

[As told to @Ragi Gupta ]