My message is: beauty has no gender. At the end of the day beauty is beauty.
Carmen Carrera
There's a lot of healing that needs to happen between the LGBT community and the cisgender heterosexual world. There's a ton of misunderstanding.
We must learn to exist together in peace and love people as they are. That is the only way humanity wins.
When you don't have a support system, and you're constantly being bullied for who you are, and you begin to not accept yourself for who you are, it's a distraction from schoolwork. It's a distraction from learning and from growing.
I see the human body as your soul's apartment.
Beauty is the idea of who you truly are.
I'll have men, or I'll have women say that I'll never be a woman because I don't menstruate, or because I'm not made up like Kim Kardashian. So in that sense, I use makeup for a little bit of confidence. But for the most part, day-to-day, I wear makeup if it feels good.
As someone who's visible, I feel it's part of my responsibility to have a voice for trans people because the fight is not necessarily on television. The fight is every day.
It would be pretty amazing for Victoria's Secret to be that huge corporation that embraces trans women. We shop there as well.
Beauty comes from within, but it's up to us to use fashion and beauty to express who we are on the inside.
Beauty is the ability to utilize the tools provided in order to showcase your spirit in order to show your true soul.
Feeling comfortable with your body as you go through a transition is not easy, and honestly, as a trans person on hormones or after surgery, you just don't really know what your results will be, how you'll finally look. Managing all of that is a challenge.
Being in the entertainment industry, I do have some privileges, but when I'm off sets and in the real world, I'm a trans individual whose rights and safety have been taken away.
Couples Therapy' is pretty big for me because it's opening the door to a new audience - a hip-hop following, which I feel is a bit more judgmental toward the LGBT community.
But if you look at Victoria's Secret models, honestly, young girls don't necessarily look up to them for the healthiest reasons. It's more about the envy, the desire to look aesthetically best: it's an unattainable, elitist mindset.
Drag has always been an open space where anyone within the LGBT community can express their creativity.
I don't want to reclaim the word 'tranny.' I don't want anyone to refer to me as 'tranny.'
My coffee usually is very light, very sweet with milk preferably Almond Milk but if not available I take whole milk but I'm trying to go vegan, so I try for at least soy.
Trans people are beautiful. It's a different kind of beauty, and it should be recognized and respected.
When you live this trans experience, there's a point and time in your life that you almost stop developing because you don't know where to go.
Loyalty is my favorite quality in a 'bestie.'
And I come from a very proud Hispanic family. We're proud to be Latino. We're proud to be Peruvian. And my dad's side is proud to be Puerto Rican.
I would love to do more modeling. I would love to do anything really, mainstream, and help to create, I guess, a feeling of acceptance for people who are different and not look at them like they're freaks or whatever.
Most Americans need to be told discrimination against trans people is against the law. Instead of looking at us as people, they look at us as not people. If there's a law that states this treatment is not allowed, I'd feel safer to function more confidently in society because I'd know I'm protected by the law in the country I pay taxes in.
I've learned that my word carries weight, and that's something I have to always have to keep in mind.
I got kicked out of Catholic school, by the way, because I was too feminine. I was too feminine and I had a crush on this boy named Anthony and the nuns were not having it.
All you have to do is respect me. Use the right words. If you don't consider me a woman, then use trans woman. Whatever works for you. But don't try to use something that's a slur or something that's meant to degrade who we are.
Being a voice for my community is something that I don't take lightly.
I wasn't a masculine kid; I was pretty effeminate.
I don't need to rely on my concealer to have a sense of myself. I should be able to go out without my concealer, without my makeup, and still be able to be joyful.
Regardless of whether you're in a gay or heterosexual relationship, you're going to go through your ups and downs.
I'm a show girl at heart.
In my early 20s, I set out to kind of find myself. At that time, if you were different or if you ever questioned your gender identity or sexual orientation, society kind of put you in the gay club.
I always try to think about what I can do to let people know that I'm just like everyone else. I have two girls here at home I'm trying to raise. I'm trying to be a good stepmom. I'm trying to stay fit and be a good model and break ground in the acting world. I'm working that same struggle every other woman is trying to work.
When I was a kid, I was really quiet.
I want to just be able to act and be like the girl next door or the cute babysitter or the busy mom who's fun or who knows, maybe something super dramatic, somebody who's really insecure and angry.
I like to jump around, and it takes a long time for people to catch up to me sometimes.
For me, I've tried to always live in the moment and I don't think that much about what is law, what is written down.
I want to be respected as a woman, as a mother, as a wife. That's why I transition.
I've always had a 'stand up for the people' type of personality.
I want to inspire strength. I also want to inspire people to create their own happy reality.
My family is very supportive, lucky for me.
I know during my transition it was difficult for me to stop believing I would be stuck unhappy forever, but that's not true. Physical changes take a while but internal feelings of changing and finding your peace can take way longer.
I don't dedicate my whole life to being a trans advocate. But I do believe that me, and how I represent myself and how I am honest and open to everybody, I do feel like I'm doing something for the trans community.
I'm not Laverne Cox. I'm not Janet Mock... I'm just a girl from New Jersey who has experience and lived.
My experience started in the gay nightlife/drag life. I was just as consumed in ignorance about what is offensive to transpeople because at that time I hadn't found myself. I was living as a drag performer only.
Respectable transwomen were not as visible and very unclear in how they defined themselves. I had no one to look up to, pre-transition.
If I ever feel like I don't know what to do next, I always think about WWJD, like 'what would J-Lo do,' 'cause J-Lo for me is like the epitome of feminine sensuality, mixed with show stopping beauty.
I would say what's really interesting about me personally is that I've taken my transgender experience, and I've looked at it on the bright side, on the positive side.
I think that for a lot of people, I inspire them to be themselves.
