I was assigned male at birth, is the way I like to put it, because I think... we're born who we are... and the gender thing is something someone imposes on you. And so, I was assigned male at birth, but I always felt like I was a girl.

Many in the trans community are fed up with L.G.B.T. organizations that continue to erase trans identity or just give lip service to trans issues. We need our cisgender allies - gay and straight - to treat transgender lives as if they matter, and trans people need multiple seats at the tables in the organizations that say they're interested in L.G.B.T. equality; this absence has been painful since Stonewall.

When you train as a dancer, you understand you have to work exceptionally hard. I think dancers are the hardest - working people in show business. You have to push your body beyond where you thought it could go. It's athleticism. Perfection doesn't exist, but with classical ballet, there is an ideal, and I got obsessed with that ideal. In some ways, it was problematic because I don't have an ideal ballet body, but the discipline is what I carry with me to this day. That's my park, the discipline of dancing.

It's a struggle every day, to stay present, not to become that...eight year old who was bullied and chased home from school. Some days I wake up and it's like I'm eight years old again. And I'm scared for my life, and I don't know if I'm going to be beaten up that day.

There's not just one trans story. There's not just one trans experience.

I'm a Self-made Woman in Every Sense of the Word

I would never be so arrogant to think that someone should model their life after me. But the idea of possibility the idea that I get to live my dreams out in public, hopefully will show to other folks that it's possible. So I prefer the term 'possibility model' to 'role model.'