Zack Tanner
ztanner@post-gazette.com

February 19, 2019

Colby Love, center, 18, of Bethel Park laughs as he talks with fellow Bethel Park swimmers before competing in the boys freestyle relay, Tuesday Jan. 29, 2019, at Bethel Park High School in Bethel Park. For the past two years, Love has battled with severe depression and anxiety along with an overwhelming feeling that he wasn't meant to be a girl. After taking a year off from both swimming and school in his junior year, Love received treatment for his declining mental health. In this year, he also decided to have top surgery before returning to the pool for his senior year. "I knew going back into swimming, after the year off or whatever, that I like went into it saying like, I’m doing this for me and not anyone else. And um, that I was like, I can’t compare the person that I was the last time I swam, to the person that I am now.”

Colby Love, center, 18, of Bethel Park laughs as he talks with fellow Bethel Park swimmers before competing in the boys freestyle relay, Tuesday Jan. 29, 2019, at Bethel Park High School in Bethel Park. For the past two years, Love has battled with severe depression and anxiety along with an overwhelming feeling that he wasn’t meant to be a girl. After taking a year off from both swimming and school in his junior year, Love received treatment for his declining mental health. In this year, he also decided to have top surgery before returning to the pool for his senior year. “I knew going back into swimming, after the year off or whatever, that I like went into it saying like, I’m doing this for me and not anyone else. And um, that I was like, I can’t compare the person that I was the last time I swam, to the person that I am now.”