Talking with my teammates, they gave me the confidence I needed, coming out to them.

If you weren't embarrassed from yesterday, then don't come into this gym. You're not needed or wanted here. We need the mindset to shift, because that was embarrassing.

Dads push us to take risks. Moms put the training wheels on our bikes. We need moms. But not in the military, especially in combat units.

Heroes always have their scars. Some you can see, some you read about later on.

“Discrimination is not done by villains. It’s done by us.”

Human rights require a dedication to equality at every intersection of life.

Being exceptional isn’t revolutionary, it’s lonely. It separates you from your community. Who are you, really, without community? I have been held up consistently as a token, as the “right” kind of trans woman (educated, able-bodied, attractive, articulate, heteronormative). It promotes the delusion that because I “made it,” that level of success is easily accessible to all young trans women. Let’s be clear: It is not.

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. It is time now to write the next chapter - and to write it in the books of law.