Hope Jahren Quotes

I've always known exactly who I am. I was a girl trapped in a boy's body.

I figured out who I was very early on - actually, at the age of 13, with the help of the Internet - so I knew that a transition, becoming a woman, was always something I needed to do.

It took me a long time to realise that I was a girl as a teenager. At that point I never really believed it. I looked like a boy for a long time. Now, finally, I feel like a woman.

Number one, I don't understand a transgender. I don't understand. Is it a guy dressed up like a girl, or a girl dressed up like a guy?

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a boy. I really had gender issues.

I was never going to become a beautiful, passable woman, and I was never going to be a man. It's a quandary. But the trans condition is a beautiful mystery; it's one of nature's best ideas.

I knew at a very early age, about 6 years old, that there was something different about me. But being young and not being exposed to people who had gender dysphoria, or role models that you see on TV today, I didn't know what it was.

Everyone's journey to coming out as transgender is different. For me, I've know that I'm transgender my entire life.

I am transgender. I knew that I was for as long as I can remember.

I had always known I was female, since I was 7 years old.

I knew that I was trans when I was three years old. Well, I didn't know 'trans' because I didn't know there was a word for it, but I just knew that in my head and my heart that I was supposed to be a girl.

For my entire life, I've wrestled with my gender identity.

It's hard because the phrase 'woman trapped in a man's body' is thrown around a lot, but that's like shorthand. It's deeper than that. There's so much more to it.

Being transgender isn't a medical transition. It's a process of learning to love yourself for who you are.

Me feeling ambiguous about my gender identity has been a lifelong feeling, certainly.

Also, I had read a book called She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders, written by a professor who had gone through transgender surgery, but it took this person well into his thirties to come to terms with the absolute necessity of having to do it.

For the longest time, I thought I was a boy. I really did. I wore boys' clothes, played tag football.

I was born a girl; it just took me a little while to become one fully.

From the start. As early as - I felt I was in the wrong sex; I really did. I would go into my dad's room and put on his clothes.

Everyone else is following these male and female tracks that have already been set for them, but when you're trans there is no trail.

My parents started questioning me about whether or not I was transgender - whether or not I was trying to be a woman. It was a big argument.

Being transgender is more than just medical books and everything, procedures. It's something spiritual in which you're finding yourself and really discovering who you are and learning to love yourself.

This is what's hard: I know I'm legally a man, but I'm also male-minded, despite having the female appearance.

Transsexuals are amazing. You have all the great stuff in one place.

From the moment I could express myself, I acted like a stereotypical girl and insisted that I was a girl. I wasn't just a boy who liked girly things - I knew I was a girl.