Identity is difficult. So often it happens that who you are isn't who you perform to others in your day to day. In collegiate athletics, there is a dominant way of being. Speaking of my personal experience as a male athlete, there is a suffocating environment of heteronormativity that implicitly and explicitly reminds that there is something wrong with all that is different, that is other. But this June, I was able to experience the total opposite.
 
From June 22nd to June 25th I was fortunate enough to attend the Athlete Activism Summit, with help from

Cal's DEIBJ office, in Seattle. There I made friends with a hundred other student-athletes from all across the United States  who also wanted to be true to themselves, all of us different but united in the feeling that college athletics can be better. Athlete Ally hosted an incredible summit, providing us with speakers, bonding activities, support, and most importantly, understanding. They brought us together to organize, show solidarity, and build community. The memories and friendships I made that weekend will stay with me for years to come, and they will motivate what I do the rest of my stay at Cal.
 
Distinguished Cal professor Judith Butler argues that gender is the "stylized repetition of acts through time," and this point of view demystifies so much of what we take as a given. So little about how we present ourselves is truly inherent, and if we learn to go beyond those arbitrary boundaries I believe we will be freer and happier for it. Because gender is not being, it is performed, and life is too short to spend it performing something you don't want to be. 
 
For me, LGBTQIA+ inclusion is one step towards a broader goal. I don't speak for that community, but I think they, myself, and everybody else have a common interest in making collegiate athletics a place where people can feel comfortable being themselves, unrestrained by stigma and perception, whether they are LGBTQIA+ or anything else.

A rising sophomore on the Cal cross country team, Chris Waligorski is majoring in electrical engineering and computer science at Cal.