\u201cHopefully, the next person won\u2019t have to fight as much\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was a quiet May morning in Lethbridge, Alberta, when Ness Murby made history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stepping onto the sun-scorched field in front of a handful of spectators, two-kilogram discus in hand, Murby became the first openly trans Paralympian man in competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was so filled with pride to be showing up as my authentic self,\u201d Murby says, reflecting on his first men\u2019s competition nearly a year later. \u201cThere is no emotion to even describe it. I was there<\/em>. And that was everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Murby had always been sporty\u2014growing up in Australia, his friends were always getting together to play basketball or tennis or go for a swim at the beach. As a teenager, he started powerlifting, pushing himself to eventually break multiple records in the sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI liked feeling like I had more control over my physicality; it didn\u2019t occur to me that that was potentially interrelated with my gender until I was much older,\u201d Murby says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sports were also a chance for Murby to be a part of his local blind and visually impaired community, who introduced him to goalball and blind cricket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since 2005, Murby has been an athlete on the world stage, bringing home medals in discus and javelin. Representing Canada at the 2016 Summer Paralympics, he came sixth among the blind athletes in his division in discus throw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But behind the scenes, Murby\u2014who competed as a woman in the women\u2019s division until 2022\u2014was coming to a new understanding of his gender. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMy first coming out was when I was six, when my Gram asked me, \u2018What do you want to be when you grow up?\u2019\u201d Murby recalls. \u201cAnd I just immediately said I wanted to be a husband and a dad. And because of how Gram met me where I was at \u2026 that was made possible. Gram just said, \u2018You should have been born a boy.\u2019 And she always cheered me on in such a way; I was Ness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Without many high-profile trans, disabled men to look up to\u2014and even fewer trans, disabled elite athletes\u2014it took Murby decades from that conversation with his Gram to understand the feelings about his gender he had carried since childhood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe world told me I was gay,\u201d says Murby. \u201cAnd in accepting that narrative, I thought I had found a place for me in the world. And then I realized, that place kept getting smaller and smaller, because I grew\u2014as a human\u2014and the things I wanted in life weren\u2019t being reflected in that community.\u2026 And suddenly it became a really isolating place to be, rather than that comforting world of acceptance I had thought I had.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Murby, living at the intersection of disability and queerness had always been a strange mix of invisibility and safety; people often assume he looks, dresses and acts the way he does because of his disability, rather than his queer identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere was ableism suggesting that I dress the way I dress and go to the men\u2019s section and have a certain style because I\u2019m blind,\u201d he says. \u201cAs if they trained me, my cane and my guide dog to only gravitate toward the men\u2019s section.\u2026 There\u2019s this idea that it\u2019s because I\u2019m blind, as opposed to it being because I have a gender expression and a gender identity and a sexual orientation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n One support in Murby\u2019s life has been his spouse, training partner and sports assistant Eva Fejes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes, we\u2019re holding hands because you\u2019re blind,\u201d she jokes. \u201cI\u2019m kissing you to let you know where your mouth is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n When Murby realized he was trans, he wanted to shout it from the rooftops. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI was filled with this euphoria of finally understanding myself, and was so overwhelmed with relief and understanding and grief and joy,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But in the highly gendered world of elite sports, he knew transitioning would have a major impact on his athletic career. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He was going to fight for a future where no one is forced to choose between being a para athlete and being authentically themselves. And if he was going to pick that fight, it would start with him.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n At home in Vancouver, B.C., with Fejes, shortly before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Murby had been working out what his next steps would be, how many more competitions he would do\u2014and how long he could stand to wait before coming out and transitioning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe got the diary out,\u201d Murby says. \u201cWe said, okay, in 2020, we\u2019ll go to Tokyo, and that\u2019ll be around August. Then I\u2019ll retire come September\u2014I\u2019ve had a good stint in sport. And then I\u2019ll quietly come out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the pandemic threw a wrench in their carefully laid plans, and Murby and Fejes\u2019s daughter was born, Murby changed his mind. Becoming a husband and a dad was everything he had dreamed it would be and more, but he had found a new mission:<\/p>\n\n\n\n He was going to fight for a future where no one is forced to choose between being a para athlete and being authentically themselves. And if he was going to pick that fight, it would start with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m not going to accept being shoved out of a space, because those who govern the space feel too uncomfortable and too rigid to recognize that I belong and I deserve to be there,\u201d Murby says. \u201cThat was a turning point for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m here to fight for space for myself, but really, I\u2019m here to hold space\u2014because there was no one there before me. So if I can take that off of somebody else\u2019s burden, to me, that\u2019s a responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since coming out publicly in 2020, Murby has faced an uphill battle to make it to the 2024 Paralympics in Paris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As detailed in Ness Murby: Transcending<\/em>, a six-part docuseries about Murby<\/a> released by AMI this year, he faced steep barriers to remaining on the Canadian Paralympic team. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Early in his medical transition, and while recovering from a recent knee surgery, Athletics Canada issued Murby a \u201cred card\u201d\u2014a warning that the national athletics organization was likely to rescind his funding, since he hadn\u2019t consistently been meeting the benchmarks the organizations had set for men\u2019s competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve been faced with people saying, \u2018Well, Ness, maybe you\u2019re just not going to be an elite athlete anymore,\u2019 because I\u2019m transitioning,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I think that\u2019s such a narrow-minded response to transitioning. I am an elite athlete because of my skill, my ability, my drive, the way I show up. Those things don\u2019t change with transition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Eventually, Athletics Canada agreed to grant Murby a health card, which takes into account the specific health circumstances that were making it more difficult for him to train and compete, and allowed him to keep his funding. But the organization has since changed the rules, so another athlete in his position wouldn\u2019t have the same option.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though the group of openly trans athletes at the highest levels of competition is small, Murby has found support and solidarity from others in this space\u2014like Italian sprinter Valentina Petrillo<\/a>, the first trans woman to compete in a Paralympic women\u2019s championship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI saw so many trans women in sport, but not trans men,\u201d said Murby. And the trans women were being demonized and treated so abhorrently. And seeing the strength with which these trans women athletes were standing up to that was really empowering as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Murby looks at the adversity trans athletes are facing throughout North America and around the world, he says it\u2019s even more important for him to stand and be counted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n