I don't think that I'm embracing any kind of leadership for transparency or trans advocacy.

Day-to-day life is as simple as it is routine - though my days are often long and very busy.

It's not my goal to be a leader or spokesperson, or anything like that.

There are very few distinctions between el bueno and el malo en la prisión militar. Instead of the good and the bad, there is the boring and la repetición - the repetitive. The routine is as endless as it is numbing.

As Iraq erupts in civil war and America again contemplates intervention, that unfinished business should give new urgency to the question of how the United States military controlled the media coverage of its long involvement there and in Afghanistan.

There are still many homeless trans folk wandering the streets. They are still harassed on the street by bystanders and police officers. We still face many administrative hurdles in every aspect of our lives. If anything, things are actually getting harder for us, because now there are people who are using our visibility as an excuse to say that we are already receiving fair and honest treatment, when the reality is that we are still in bad shape as a community.

I think we can achieve meaningful change, but only if we demand that the institutions themselves change their behavior.