This story initially appeared on Behind the Whistle, the official blog of the IWLCA, and is being republished with permission from the organization. Mike Lee Hairston is a volunteer assistant coach at Virginia Wesleyan University.

My name is Mike. I’m a goalie, and I’m transgender. I know there are so many other players who’ve had or are having similar experiences as me. My story is important because it inspired one of the young women I coach to speak at a school board meeting about “Why transgender students should be able to use the bathroom they are comfortable with,” and how other students don’t see an issue with that.

My story begins in 2017 at Virginia Wesleyan University. I have always struggled with mental health and being who I really am, but I found medicine in the medicine game. Apparently, I spread that medicine to other teammates and coaches as well. Lacrosse was such medicine that I took every opportunity to pick up my stick and do anything, even watch film. Lacrosse was the only place I was happy. I stepped on Birdsong Field and gender didn’t matter. I was at home. That’s really what my story’s about. 

I have long struggled with gender identity, and by my sophomore year, it really became a struggle. I was graced with having a coach with an honest and open heart and mind. One day I sat down with my former bead coach, Kendyl Clarkson, and I told her everything. She helped me weigh the positives and negatives, but I still didn’t know the right decision. Do I transition or do I keep playing? To sum it all up, Coach Clarkson told me to follow my heart and I’ll know when. At least that’s what I heard.

I continued to play, but I had also begun to grow sadder and unmotivated to do much outside of practice. By my senior year, I knew it was time to fully transition. In my junior year, I spent my days mostly unhappy with my only two hours of happiness during practice. But by the end of the season, I knew I had truly only stayed and played for my teammates. I was no longer happy. Knowing I HAVE to give up being with my team, my family, to be truly happy in life was heartbreaking. I had put off telling my coach, at the time Nicole DeSalvia, that I had to leave. I felt like I was letting my team down, as a goalie and as a teammate. October 18, 2020, was very hard for me, but I shared my decision with the team, who were excited and supportive. Despite that, I cried the entire walk from the field to my dorm, because I felt like I had lost my world.

At first, I was happy to medically transition, and I knew I would miss playing. But I did not think it would hurt the way it did … seeing my team on the field and not being there with them. I could go to the field anytime, but it’s not the same without your family. The hardest part was that I couldn’t play on the men’s or women’s team. The NCAA doesn’t work like that for transgender athletes going through transition. I didn’t have enough testosterone for the men’s team and had too much for the women’s team. That really hurt, and that’s when I truly felt I had no purpose. That’s what lacrosse was to me. I went through a long period of sadness and was very unsure and questioning my decision. I had started to see the me I am in my head, in the mirror. But I felt I wasn’t truly happy.

Then Coastal Crush Lacrosse, a travel team I had worked with in the past, reached out to me to be a goalie coach for the travel teams. At first, I didn’t want to say yes, but my current roommate and former teammate Texas convinced me otherwise. I knew I wanted to coach, and I thought it was my only way to stay in lacrosse. I was wrong. Being around lacrosse and a team gave me life. But realizing I love to teach and watching the magic of what you taught unfold on the field was something different than playing. It was something better.

I now had the time to travel with the team and that, too, was an amazing experience. It made me realize how much I love coaching and how much my time as a player paid off. I had finally begun to feel like I had a purpose … which my bosses at Coastal Crush — Toni Auld, Catherine “Caddie” Hardy and Lauren Logan-Gates — confirmed for me and never missed a chance to reinforce. 

Lacrosse has become my medicine game again. It helped create the feeling of purpose I urgently needed, and I have the enthusiasm to play (post-collegiately) again. While I have faced adversity, setbacks, injuries, mental health struggles and so much more, every coach I’ve had as a collegiate athlete has reminded me of how I refuse to stay down. My story is only possible because of Coach Clarkson, Coach DeSalvia, my field hockey coach, Christina Restivo-Walker, softball coach Brandan Elliot and the Coastal Crush Lacrosse staff. I am forever thankful to them and the positive impact they had on me on and off the field.

“Head up, Smiles!”

And a special thank you to Coach DeSalvia for allowing me to volunteer as a coach this season!