But my body was telling its story. I have read a lot of stuff about cancer. I needed this book. I wish I'd had this book when I had cancer. I wanted someone to be talking to me about "fart floors." I wanted somebody telling me what it was like to have a colostomy bag. I felt so alone. And if you're a person who's been traumatized by past abuse, it's so potentially re-traumatizing. You slip right into "oh my god, this is the only person this has happened to before" mentality: "I'm especially bad and I have especially bad cancer..."

What I believe is that we have this extraordinary spirit inside ourselves, which for me is our Buddha nature. I believe we are in the process of opening and getting closer and closer to our Buddha nature and stripping away all that is covering it. I don't think I'm going to end up meeting this one being up there or out there.

I think we have made progress. There's no doubt about it, we have moved forward. But there's some essential, core thing that has not been deconstructed. And I'm telling you, it's connected to the body. I know it is.

Women are the primary resource of the planet. They give birth, we come from them. They are mothers, they are visionaries, they are the future. If we can figure out how to make women feel safe and honor women, it would be parallel or equal to honoring life itself.

I'm in good shape. My cancer means I have lost a lot of organs and I'm a lot lighter. I have devoted myself to yoga and I'm doing handstands.

I have been a depressed person most of m life. I was always in the throes of self-hatred.

There are three billion women in the world who have vaginas. I don't think we can stop fighting for our sexual liberation, for our right to control our bodies. But at the same time as we're doing that, we have to also be fighting for the rights of trans women and standing up for them and making sure that we're always providing platforms for them and listening to their concerns in solidarity.