It feels like a simple human right to be able to be yourself, and yet, what trans people have to go through in order to get to there, it can be so complicated.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I think what people need to realize is that, with trans people, we're like everybody else. No group of people are all the same. All women are not the same, all men are not the same, all children are not the same. It's the same thing with trans people - we're all so different, we have different goals, different dreams, and different aspirations.
Everybody wants to have a partner; everybody would love to have a family, and for trans people, sometimes that can be extraordinarily difficult to do.
I thought, transgender people are much worse off than I am. That's why they're willing to risk everything to be who they are. But the older I got, the harder it got to stay in my body.
Being transgender, like being gay, tall, short, white, black, male, or female, is another part of the human condition that makes each individual unique, and something over which we have no control. We are who we are in the deepest recesses of our minds, hearts and identities.
It's very important to me that people accept me as a transgendered female. But it's ridiculous to a lot of people and I understand that.
Whether straight, gay, bi, trans... body image and identity can be a struggle for us all.
Trans people deserve something vital; they deserve your respect. From that respect comes a more compassionate community.
I consider myself true, which, I know, some people look at as radical, but I enjoy the normalcies of life. I'm not out there trying to transform things, but somehow, by being easy to talk to, and easy to look at, and on a mainstream TV show, I think that I'm helping the public's opinions about transgendered people to change, slowly.
Until I really accepted this about myself and got over any of my own transphobia that I had, I really felt like I wouldn't be accepted. I thought I would ruin my life.
Usually, when you are an ethnic person or a trans person, in your average, everyday, unsophisticated television show, you are there for that reason. And they clearly justify and overexplain why. You very rarely see a transgender actor playing the part of a grocery-store clerk without having to say, 'Oh, look at that trans person.'
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