As the ego sinks, a soul floats. At a meet against Columbia on November 20, Harvard University freshman swimmer Schuyler Bailar posted a time of 2:19.64 in the men’s 200-yard breaststroke. He finished last. The time would’ve blown the best number by a Crimson or Lions women’s swimmer that day out of the water, beating the fastest mark by more than four seconds.

But Bailar was not swimming with women. Last month, he became the first openly transgender swimmer to compete for an NCAA Division I program, the latest chapter in a long, winding and personal quest for serenity.

“A lot of people ask it, and I ask it of myself sometimes: ‘What the hell am I doing?’ ” Bailar says. “It’s not that – I don’t mean that I regret it or anything. Really, objectively, I’m not any worse than I was. So it’s hard, definitely, because I am incredibly competitive. And it’s hard to know that, as much as I try now, I can’t win something.

“I believed in myself; I believed I could break some records. And I had to let go of those. But I know I’m living authentically for me. And when I reconcile this decision and kind of work through that competitive – I don’t know what to call it – competitive tension, there are two sides of it. I wanted to win a lot of things and had a lot of opportunities – that sucks to just lose that, period. And on the other hand, I’m doing great things … in my own way.

On the question of serenity, it came down to a simple question: am I happiest identifying myself with medals, with trophies – as a female, he swam with future Olympians – or by identifying myself as a man?

“They’re like, ‘Why would you give up all that?’ Sometimes, I don’t have a hard answer for you,” says Bailar, a native of McLean, Virginia, who was originally recruited to join the Crimson’s women’s swim program. “Sometimes, I’m like, ‘I just did.’ And there are a lot of grey areas in this. But also there is a lot of happiness and a lot more of a feeling (that) ultimately, this is the decision that I made and I think is right for me.”

One of the top female swimmers in greater Washington DC, Bailar had helped to set a national relay record in the 400, medley – Olympic champion Katie Ledecky was on the same team – and competed in the 2013 junior national championships. It was glorious. It was hell.

Peers saw the grades, the medals, the gleaming yacht; Schuyler went to sleep trying to navigate its cardboard bottom. Privately, he battled depression and suicidal thoughts, the confusion, the lack of fulfillment, the never-ending internal debates. He’d grown up wanting to be like his father. His best friends were boys. As a prep at Washington’s Georgetown Day School, Bailar came out as gay and dated a girl. And yet he remained this incomplete circuit, unable to reconcile how he felt with how he looked. Or was supposed to look.

“It’s a struggle for everybody,” Bailar says. “And I think it’s not just people in my situation. It’s something that I started to learn toward the end of my senior year (of high school): You can’t base your own self-worth based on how you compare to others. I’m worthy, period. And it’s kind of a validating my own worth for myself, as opposed to trying to validate it from (others).”

After graduation, Schuyler took time off to seek treatment at a center for eating disorders. Harvard’s offer was extended to his gender of choice, and he chose it. In March, Bailar’s breasts were surgically removed; hormone treatments began in June.

“I’ve been on testosterone for six months; the guys have been on it for eight years,” Bailar says. “I feel like I have a lot more to give. I’m just kind of adjusting right now. I’m learning about what I can do.”

In 2011, the NCAA clarified its policies on transgender participants – student-athletes can compete on teams of either sex, depending on their hormone use. Jay Pulitano was a part of the women’s swim team at Division III Sarah Lawrence College for three seasons before joining the men’s squad. Kye Allums asked to be identified as a man while playing with the George Washington women’s basketball program in 2010.

Schuyler Bailar in the pool. Photograph: @pinkmantaray/Instagram

Caitlyn Jenner’s high-profile transition brought the transgender athlete, and transgender issues, squarely into the mainstream. Bailar, meanwhile, has remained open and candid about his own process, posting numerous updates to his Instagram feed of a changing physique and, in November, even offering up a picture of a revised birth certificate that identifies him as male.

“I think, to most people, I’m just a freshman. I’m another guy,” he says. “I don’t always get identified. There’s not a struggle with that. Nobody comes up and me and is like, ‘You’re that kid.’

“And I don’t try to hide it. I’m really proud of who I am. So, to me, it’s not just a pride thing – I just wouldn’t want to hide anything. I don’t want to mask my identity or whatever. But for the most part, I’m not ‘that kid.’ I think most people know that there’s a (transgender) kid at Harvard, because there’s been such media coverage. But they don’t usually connect it with me. And it’s interesting. Nobody walks up to me like, ‘You’re that kid.’

“The swim teams, they all know.”

And they deal, although Bailar wonders how things might play out on the road. He didn’t join the team on its recent swing through Austin, Texas and Athens, Georgia; the Crimson are slated to head to Las Vegas in late January.

“Honestly, being a transgender person does increase the likelihood of being murdered by a lot, to just be really frank about that,” Bailar says. “There’s definitely a safety concern, and my parents have talked about that to me.

“If you saw me on the street, I’m just a normal kid. I’m just weird … I’m not picked out of a crowd quickly. But I’m not concerned about that (safety) stuff. My teammates are all behind me. And there’s a bunch of pretty big guys, so I’m sure if anybody tried to do anything, they’d be behind me. Nobody has said anything to me so far.

“Out of those people that I know or have been associated with, nobody has said anything mean to me. I’ve gotten zero negative support from the people that I love and the people that I know … the most (critical) had been: ‘I don’t understand, Schuyler, can you explain it to me?’ When people ask me that, I’m elated. I want them to care.”

He dates. He does your typical freshman, testing-your-independence stuff. Male teammates have shown adaptation and acceptance; Bailar considers the women’s squad to be among his best friends on campus.

After one recent competition, Schuyler says a male peer from another university made a point to seek him out, noting that they had “a good conversation.” Shop talk. Swim talk.

“I don’t think people care a whole lot, to be honest, because I’m last,” Bailar said. “Also, because I’m not a threat to a lot of guys because I can’t beat them right now. It’s very, like, a ‘macho’ deal. People don’t care if I’m not going to be a threat to them … I’m really not a threatening person. I’m 5ft 8in, I’m not that big, I’m not being a threat to a whole lot of them, for the most part. I’m not a threat to their masculinity, so they don’t really care.”

Schuyler cares. No more shining in the margins. No more conforming for the sake of it. No more trying to paper over tiny cracks of the heart. New bar. Old mantra.

“When I say I think I’ve adjusted my goals, I mean from when I was competing at the women’s level,” Bailar says. “I like to make attainable goals, because to do otherwise, there’s no point. Maybe at some point, two or three years down the road, the goal would be to win something. Right now, the goal is to keep up – maybe to catch someone. Now my goal is not be last at anything.

“It’s a goal that I can achieve, relative to everyone else. It’s not the kind of glory that’s going in the record books. It’s not going to get glory in the pool. But it’s a different kind of glory.”