TEDDY GEIGER

My mother makes marvelous meals.

It's not a cis-man becoming a cis-woman. It's a trans person just being who they want to be. This is how I've always felt, and this is who I've always been. But so much focus is put on the transition or the change because it's so visible. But that's not even what it is... That's who that person's been and who they are now.

I was terrified of girls until sophomore year of high school. I couldn't even borrow pencils from them. I'd have to wait until the teacher called me out on it, like, 'Does anybody have a pencil for Teddy?' because I'd be too scared to ask the girl next to me.

I definitely have always been interested in film and working in that, and I never actually thought that I'd be able to do it.

I'm not a big tennis fan.

I don't ever want to let anyone down. That's my worst fear.

I'm not ashamed of myself.

It's hard to feel like a teen idol.

My goal is to make music and be a part of cool projects.

Things kind of have their arc: you get signed, and your first thought is, 'Oh my God, I made it!' But you never really make it.

One of the things that I loved about working on that first album was working with Billy Mann, who produced the album, and all the people who worked to finish it. Just seeing how they did things and learning.

Music has been more a solitary, creative thing. The acting side of things and working in movies has helped me collaboratively with music in terms of helping me get ideas across to other people and making it more of a team efforts.

The song 'Try Too Hard' I wrote when I was 10 or 11.

Painting my nails was one of the things I liked to do, and I was so terrified of, like, ever letting anybody see my nails painted.

People have their image of you or their ideas about who you are, and it can be frustrating.

I think you can tour the country and collectively reach fewer people than just being on television one time.

When I was growing up, I didn't know of anybody who was trans. There was always, like, this shame, anxiety thing around all of that, even if I wasn't actively expressing it.

I was on 'In Search of the Partridge Family,' MTV'S 'Miss Seventeen,' and the comedy 'Love Monkey.'

I'm not really a huge team player guy; I wasn't really into sports or anything.

It's very, very exciting for me to hear my songs on the radio and to play shows and have people know the words.

I think the music that I'm writing and the stuff I'm going to do as I age will age.

I went to my junior prom. It wasn't that fun... And I don't dance.

I threw away all my boys' clothes and started wearing makeup.

Everybody has had that experience of really wanting to do something and being afraid.

You're always kind of having to 'make it' over and over again, which is cool and makes it fun. But I remember thinking, when I first did it, I was like, 'Cool. I made it. It happened.' And I did not. That's not how it works.