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.

I don't have the luxury of doing things privately.

I absolutely believe in assimilation. I don't believe I'm any different from straight people. My wants and needs are the same as theirs. I don't look at sexual orientation as that big of a deal. It's just an orientation.

It really bothers me when I see people doing my mother in drag. I mean, just imagine if you saw people doing that with your mother.

I came out around 25 publicly.

There's a gender in your brain and a gender in your body. For 99 percent of people, those things are in alignment. For transgender people, they're mismatched. That's all it is. It's not complicated, it's not a neurosis. It's a mix-up. It's a birth defect, like a cleft palate.

Deep down, my mom had long suspected I was gay... Much of her anger and hurt came from her sense of betrayal that she was the last to be told.