When I run, I feel like I become this super human creature. It's as if my body grew wings, claws, these cool muscles, and I shape-shift into another machine running through the world.

It's always had that big, epic, mythical feeling to it. And now, I just get to do it more freely. I get to do it in a skirt, or in a sports bra, and that makes it fun.

I won my first award as an adult last spring for this one race in Manhattan. I wore a tube top, a tennis skirt, while stood up on the stage with the winners, holding my little trophy with my little tan lines too – it was cute.

My mom asked, "What does it feel like to do that, when you wear that up on that stage?"

I said, "It just feels powerful. I feel powerful.”

I would assume for people of other genders, that there are other ways that that power expresses. For me, it's owning that creature that I've always been, in a more visible way.

In the midst of the pandemic, I literally didn't know what to do with myself, so I started running on the reg. It was also when I was in the beginning phases of transitioning socially – new name, more feminine pronouns, wearing dresses and skirts – not as a special occasion, but just as a thing that I did every day.

Once my body started to take a certain shape, suddenly it all just lined up: the clothes felt right, the body felt right, the expression felt right, the name felt right – so many things that started to lock together at once.

It's all headspace, right? Dysphoria can come from a myriad of different directions and social cues. But when we're in a good headspace, and our mind and our body are really synced up, it has way less power over how we exist in the day to day. It becomes easier for us to feel good about ourselves.

[As told to @Ragi Gupta — continued]