I came out around 25 publicly.

So when I was about 13 or 14, I realized I was attracted to women and then made the assumption that I was a lesbian, and didn't realize that that wasn't the case. It was the fact that I was a man and a heterosexual man. The issue wasn't my sexual orientation, but rather my gender identity.

Being self-supporting is important to me.

People who don't have gender dysphoria aren't going to catch it by watching me dance on television.

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.

When I realised I was transgender I was so afraid of what my transition would do to everyone else in my life and how they would react to it and would I be rejected?

Around 2001, I started analyzing lesbians. I started to realize that even really butch-acting or -dressing women still had a strong female identity that I never had.