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.

By doing the work to love ourselves more, I believe we will love each other better.

I'm always skeptical about representations of trans people, especially when trans people are not making the work.

Seeing a black transgender woman embracing and loving everything about herself might be inspiring to some other folks.

I'm so grateful that I had the luxury of transitioning in private. Because when you transition in the public eye, the transition becomes the story.

We are not what other people say we are. We are who we know ourselves to be, and we are what we love. That's okay.

Being a black transgender woman in America is really hard. It's been really hard for me. But for me living a lie was much worse. I need to be in my truth. And I've been very, very lucky that I've been able to live my dreams and I believe everyone should have the right to live their dreams. This is America. We're supposed to all have that right.