Even if I didn't have the support that I have, I would still be fighting the same fights, and I would still be the same person that I am today.

I think it's actually kind of sweet how there is a reciprocal effect that our stories can have on each other.

I am merely asking for a first chance to live my life outside the [U.S. Disciplinary Barracks] as the person I was born to be.

The most important people for me, at least in the last couple of years since I came out, are my supersecret trans friends and confidantes. I think I need to come up with a code name for this circle.

I prefer a painful truth over any blissful fantasy.

I think that the next two generations of Americans will be grappling with the very real specter of finding themselves living in a new and bizarre kind of digital totalitarian state - one that looks and feels democratic on the surface, but has a fierce undercurrent of fear and technologically enforced fascism any time you step out of line. I really hope this isn't the case, but it looks really bad right now, doesn't it?

I think the increased ubiquity of the internet and networked computing in general allowed me to have some tether no matter where I was geographically. I could log in to a computer from anywhere in the world and access the same information and the same people. It allowed me to transcend the physical differences.