I think being in a sports world opened up more possibilities for me to explore who I was outside of what everyone else was doing my age.

I didn't know that the term student athlete existed until I got to Harvard. A lot of people in US high schools, hang out with the other student athletes and their lives are defined by their sport.

But for me, it was very separate. I was a student in school, and an athlete outside of school, which really helped me in navigating all sides of who I was.

At school, it was awesome to just be a regular student because I got to be myself and be around my friends and do regular things – go out for movie dates, get coffee, and just sit and talk for hours when I had the time for it.

On the field, I got to really tap into more of a stereotypically masculine side that sports will bring out in queer athletes, or at least in queer women athletes.

I really enjoyed being one of the bros for a while, and I still have that identity. Obviously, the culture at Harvard with us being a women's team, and everyone being cis, is very different from the environment than I was in before.

Germany's lagging behind a lot in understanding that gender is a spectrum, but being on a guy's soccer team allowed me to tap into the gray zone beyond the gender binary, where I just got to exist and enjoy the sport.

I thought, “I'm gonna do whatever the hell I want. I'm not gonna define myself, or even have to think about what any of this means."

When I touch the soccer ball, everything else fades away. So when it came down to it on the field, me and the guys, we were just one unit. It didn't really matter who was who and who you were off the field.

[As told to @Ragi Gupta — continued]