The sole relief I am asking for is to be released from military prison after serving six years of confinement as a person who did not intend to harm the interests of the United States or harm any service members.

I think that some of today's focus on freedom of information and trans rights have a tendency to focus on the actions of individuals and how they should be regulated by governments. However, I think it's important to remember that it is the institutions themselves - schools, tax collection services, banks, human resources decisions, health departments, police departments, prosecutors, courts, and prisons - where the most devastating and systemic problems occur today. The scale of these problems is simply unimaginable.

It can be so difficult to get people to think about systemic institutional problems. It is easier just to see the actions of one or two people and say, "That's wrong!"

On a transparency front, I would say that I certainly dream of a world in which our local, state, and national and international governments and other organizations have a 21st century, digital-era transparency built into them by default.

I believe that the trans movement is at a crossroads. We have achieved an unprecedented level of visibility in the last couple of years. However, that's not the same thing as equality.

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.

While being tossed around the world from place to place as a teenager, I wasn't really tethered to any place or anyone.