Transgender Quotes

“People changed lots of other personal things all the time. They dyed their hair and dieted themselves to near death. They took steroids to build muscles and got breast implants and nose jobs so they'd resemble their favorite movie stars. They changed names and majors and jobs and husbands and wives. They changed religions and political parties. They moved across the country or the world — even changed nationalities. Why was gender the one sacred thing we weren’t supposed to change? Who made that rule?”
― Ellen Wittlinger, Parrotfish

“All men are liars, said Roberta Muldoon, who knew this was true because she had once been a man.”
― John Irving, The World According to Garp

“To those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender -- let me say -- you are not alone. Your struggle, for the end to violence and discrimination, is a shared struggle. Today, I stand with you. And I call upon all countries and people, to stand with you too.

A historic shift is underway. We must tackle the violence, decriminalize consensual same sex relationships and end discrimination. We must educate the public. I call on this council and people of conscience to make this happen.

The time has come.”
― Ban Ki-Moon

“But you can only lie about who you are for so long without going crazy.”
― Ellen Wittlinger, Parrotfish

“What was the point of being himself if he had to be alone?”
― Austin Chant, Peter Darling

“It is offensive that so many people feel that it is okay to publicly refer to transsexuals as being “pre-op” or “post-op” when it would so clearly be degrading and demeaning to regularly describe all boys and men as being either “circumcised” or “uncircumcised.”
― Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity

“When the majority of jokes made at the expense of trans people center on "men wearing dresses" or "men who want their penises cut off" that is not transphobia - it is trans-misogyny. When the majority of violence and sexual assaults omitted against trans people is directed at trans women, that is not transphobia - it is trans-misogyny.”
― Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity

“It's easy to fictionalize an issue when you're not aware of the many ways in which you are privileged by it.”
― Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation

“Me? I had no dreams. No longings. Dreams only set you up for disappointment. Plus, you had to have a life to have dreams of a better life.”
― Julie Anne Peters, Luna

“It shouldn't have mattered, not when Miel and the other girls in his class wore jeans more than they wore skirts. Not when they told their brothers what to do, and borrowed their fathers' books.
But there was everything else. The idea of being called Miss or Ms. or worse, Mrs. The thought of being grouped in when someone called out 'girls' or 'ladies.' The endless, echoing use of 'she' and 'her,' 'miss' and 'ma'am.' Yes, they were words. They were all just words. But each of them was wrong, and they stuck to him. Each one was a golden fire ant, and they were biting his arms and his neck and his bound-flat chest, leaving him bleeding and burning.
'He.' 'Him.' 'Mister.' 'Sir.' Even teachers admonishing him and his classmates with 'boys, settle down' or 'gentlemen, please.' These were sounds as perfect and clean as winter rain, and they calmed each searing bite of those wrong words.”
― Anna-Marie McLemore, When the Moon Was Ours

“You pass as a guy; I, as pregnant. Our waiter cheerfully tells us about his family, expresses delight in ours. On the surface, it may have seemed as though your body was becoming more and more “male,” mine, more and more “female.” But that’s not how it felt on the inside. On the inside, we were two human animals undergoing transformations beside each other, bearing each other loose witness. In other words, we were aging.”
― Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts

“I am rather disturbed by the fact that so many people—who are neither medical professionals nor trans themselves—would want to hear all of the gory details regarding transsexual physical transformations, or would feel that they have any right to ask us about the state of our genitals.”
― Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity

“Rejecting your gay or transgender child won't make them straight. It will only mean you will lose them.”
― Christina Engela, Inanna Rising: Women Forged in Fire

“John [the father] kept saying, "You have a penis. That means you’re a boy." One day, Shannon noticed that her son had been in the bathroom an awfully long time and pushed the door open. "He had a pair of my best, sharpest sewing scissors poised, ready to cut. Penis in the scissors. I said, 'What are you doing?' He said, 'This doesn’t belong here. So I’m going to cut it off.' I said, 'You can’t do that.' He said, 'Why not?' I said, 'Because if you ever want to have girl parts, they need that to make them.' I pulled that one right out of my ass. He handed me the scissors and said, 'Okay.”
― Andrew Solomon, Far from the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity

“There's something very... I don't know; primitive, perhaps, about you, Gurgeh. You've never changed sex, have you?' He shook his head. 'Or slept with a man?' Another shake. 'I thought so,' Yay said. 'You're strange, Gurgeh.' She drained her glass.”
― Iain M. Banks, The Player of Games

“Sorry to disappoint you, parents - but when your kids come out as gay, bi or transgender, it is not about you.”
― Christina Engela, Fearotica: An Anthology of Erotic Horror

“Georgette was a hip queer. She (he) didn't try to disguise or conceal it with marriage and mans talk, satisfying her homosexuality with the keeping of a secret scrapbook of pictures of favorite male actors or athletes or by supervising activities of young boys or visiting turkish baths or mens locker rooms, leering sidely while seeking protection behind a carefully guarded guise of virility (fearing that moment at a cocktail party or in a bar when this front may start crumbling from alcohol and be completely disintegrated with an attempted kiss or groping of an attractive young man and being repelled with a punch and - rotten fairy - followed with hysteria and incoherent apologies and excuses and running from the room) but, took a pride in being a homosexual by feeling intellectually and esthetically superior to those (especially women) who weren't gay (look at all the great artists who were fairies!); and with the wearing of womens panties, lipstick, eye makeup (this including occasionally gold and silver - stardust - on the lids),long marcelled hair, manicured and polished fingernails, the wearing of womens clothes complete with a padded bra, high heels and wig (one of her biggest thrills was going to BOP CITY dressed as a tall stately blond ( she was 6'4 in heels) in the company of a negro (he was a big beautiful black bastard and when he floated in all the cats in the place jumped and the squares bugged. We were at crazy pad before going and were blasting like crazy, and were up so high that I just didnt give ashit for anyone honey, let me tell you!); and the occasional wearing of menstrual napkin.”
― Hubert Selby Jr.

“So here it is. My friends call me he, or they. The government and most of my family call me she. The media calls me she, because I don’t trust them enough to request that they do anything else. My lovers call me sweetheart. Or baby. Somewhere in all of that I find myself.”
― ivan coyote

“clad not exactly as a boy but, rather confusingly, as the boy I would have been, had I been more of a girl”
― Sarah Waters, Tipping the Velvet

“If you’re in doubt as to whether or not a question is inappropriate, here’s a helpful tip. Ask yourself if you would feel comfortable asking that question to a cisgender person. Generally speaking we as a society don’t around asking people about their private parts. They’re called private for a reason.”
― Ian Thomas Malone, The Transgender Manifesto

“How are you supposed to be believed about the harm that you experience when people don't even believe that you exist?

The assumption is that being a masculine man or a feminine woman is normal, and that being "us" is an accessory. Like if you remove our clothing, our makeup, and our pronouns, underneath the surface we are just men and women playing dress-up.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary

“The trousers were miles too long, even when Peter cuffed the legs. The socks bagged in the ankles, and the shirt and sweater were equally large. But when Peter finally managed to get the collars to lie right and glanced at the reflection he'd carved out of the dust on James's mirror, a shock went through him.
This was the face which had haunted him all his life, the one he had looked in the eye on the day he left the Darling house for the last time. The hair, messy and short, enthusiastically curling without the weight of his old braid to drag it down. The stubborn chin. The clear, sharp, sullen eyes full of everything he had never been allowed to be.
Peter ran his hands over himself slowly, breathing tentatively, feeling the weight of his chest under his shirt. He had given this body up. He had thought it belonged to Wendy, to the girl he wasn't. He had let his family make him believe that the only way he would ever be a boy was to be born again in a different shape, leaving everything of his body and history behind.
He breathed out and settled in the feeling of being himself, of being something whole.”
― Austin Chant, Peter Darling

“The scrutiny on our bodies distracts us from what's really going on here: control. The emphasis on our appearance distracts us from the real focus: power.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary

“The camera only documented what had been there all along, a marriage whose foundations, constructed from the cheap materials of convention and fear, had been buckling for years.”
― Susan Faludi, In the Darkroom

“The truth is, that we are in a state of emergency. In the past few years, we have seen an onslaught of legislation... targeting gender non-conforming people...

Our communities are under attack. Regardless of whether these pieces of legislation pass, the fact that they're even being considered suggests just how disposable we are considered to be.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary

“It's actually a very old archetype that trans girl stories get put into: this sort of tragic, plucky-little-orphan character who is just supposed to suffer through everything and wait, and if you're good and brave and patient (and white and rich) enough, then you get the big reward...which is that you get to be just like everybody else who is white and rich and boring. And then you marry the prince or the football player and live boringly ever after.”
― Kai Cheng Thom, Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars

“It's a surreal experience to have your personhood be reduced to a prop.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary

“At a crucial point in my early twenties, being able to end a pregnancy had restored to me what I regarded as a normal life. I remember that it saved me.”
― Susan Faludi, In the Darkroom

“At a fundamental level, we are still having to argue for the very ability to exist. The truth is, I still cannot go outside without being afraid for my safety. There are few spaces where I do not experience harassment for the way I look.”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary

“It's like being handed over a scantron sheet and demanded to paint a self-portrait on it. It's possible, of course, but why even bother when a canvas is within our reach? Is it really a choice, when you don't get to select the options you are given to begin with?”
― Alok Vaid-Menon, Beyond the Gender Binary