We have not always been forced to pass, to go underground, in order to work and live. We have a right to live openly and proudly...when our lives are suppressed, everyone is denied an understanding of the rich diversity of sex and gender expression and experience that exist in human society.

People of all sexes have the right to explore femininity, masculinity-and the infinite variations between-without criticism or ridicule.

You're more than just neither, honey. There's other ways to be than either-or. It's not so simple. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many people who don't fit.

More exists among human beings than can be answered by the simplistic question I'm hit with every day of my life: "Are you a man or a woman?

I didn't want to be different. I longed to be everything grownups wanted, so they would love me. I followed all their rules, tried my best to please. But there was something about me that made them knit their eyebrows and frown. No one ever offered a name for what was wrong with me. That's what made me afraid it was really bad. I only came to recognize its melody through this constant refrain: 'Is that a boy or a girl?'

surrenderin is unimaginably more dangerous than struggling for survival!

I began to feel the pleasure of the weightless state between here and there