Ashley

“Each of us has a deep and profound desire to be seen, to be acknowledged, and to be respected in our totality. There is a unique kind of pain in being unseen. It's a pain that cuts deep by diminishing and disempowering, and whether done intentionally or unintentionally, it's an experience that leaves real scars.”
― Sarah McBride, Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality

“There are few things more dangerous to a transgender woman than the risk of a straight man not totally comfortable in his sexuality or masculinity realizing he is attracted to her.”
― Sarah McBride, Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality

“It felt like the world had divided into two different types of people, those who had felt pain and those who had yet to.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart

“A statue isn't built from the ground up -- it's chiseled out of a block of marble -- and I often wonder if we aren't likewise shaped by the qualities we lack, outlined by the empty space where the marble used to be. I'll be sitting on a train. I'll be lying awake in bed. I'll be watching a movie; I'll be laughing. And then, all of a sudden, I'll be struck with the paralyzing truth: It's not what we do that makes us who are. It's what we don't do that defines us.”
― Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory