Life is like a roller coaster- it has its ups and downs but in the end you have smiles and giggles because you know...you did it.

When I made the decision to transition, I honestly had no idea what it would be like for me to live as female. The only thing I knew for sure was that pretending to be male was slowly killing me.

Sometimes we do that to ourselves -- we pit our desires against one another. We insist unnecessarily on seeing one aspect of our personality as being at odds with the rest of ourselves.

Life is like a roller coaster- it has its ups and downs but in the end you have smiles and giggles because you know...you did it.

In trans women's eyes, I see a wisdom that can only come from having to fight for your right to be recognized as female, a raw strength that only comes fro unabashedly asserting your right to be feminine in an inhospitable world.

When you're a trans woman, you are made to walk this very fine line, where if you act feminine you are accused of being a parody, but if you act masculine, it is seen as a sign of your true male identity. And if you act sweet and demure, you're accused of reinforcing patriarchal ideals of female passivity, but if you stand up for your own rights and make your voice heard, then you are dismissed as wielding male privilege and entitlement.

All that you ever need to know about genitals is that they are made up of flesh, blood, and millions of tiny, restless nerve endings - anything else that you read into them is mere hallucination, a product of your own overactive imagination.