I wanted to show America a different kind of man. If there was someone like me when I was growing up, my whole life would have been different.

Gender is between your ears and not between your legs.

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.

As you get older it's more confusing. Suddenly, there's more pressure to fit in to your assigned gender.

For me, it was never a question of whether or not I was transgender. It was a question of what I'd be able to handle transitioning and having to do it in the public eye. One of the issues that was hard for me to overcome was the fear of that.

I've been embraced by a new community. That's what happens when you're finally honest about who you are; you find others like you.

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?