She/They

"Being transgender means loving myself in all my fullness, and choosing to value and uplift my authentic self above all else."

They/Them

"Being transgender means to me that you're trapped in the wrong body and trying to escape."

She/Fae

"I see my gender as the burst of light that encompasses a firework. A sudden bright light that makes you feel a sense of awe, and wonder. My gender is magic" 

She/Her

"To be transgender is a gift. A gift to live into a once hidden internal beauty. A gift to embrace the divine feminine within me. A gift like a sunflower opening, and spreading her color, to make the world more beautiful."

They/Them

"Being trans to me is freedom, I consider myself genderless. It’s almost difficult to put in words, but coming to the realization that gender doesn’t apply to me has been one of the most liberating things I’ve ever experienced."

They/Them

"Being trans means that I am empowered enough to be my truest self despite the world trying to silence it. It means that I have body issues that I’m not afraid to talk about in hopes of helping someone become educated. It means that I will constantly have to reintroduce myself to people my entire life. It means that I have faced comments and ridicule that people outside of the community can’t begin to process. It means that I get labeled as difficult for wanting basic human respect and decency. It means that I am four times more likely to be murdered for being public about my identity. And it ultimately has led me to lose a lot of people that no one should ever lose out of choice to be themselves. But it also means that I have an incredible community of people who also go through these things. People who are beautifully unapologetically authentic, resilient from being dragged through hell and back and beyond kind to make sure no one feels like they have felt."

He/Him

"Being transgender means knowing myself well enough to recognize who I am, and loving myself enough to not only accept who I am, but live as who I am without shame. Being transgender means caring about myself enough to take charge of my own happiness."

She/Her

"Making a statement without saying a word! Beauty runs deep no matter what you are, or what you are trying to be."

He/They

"Being trans, to me, is just a sigh of relief. I'm able to finally feel comfortable in my own skin and finally feel like the person I was meant to be."

She/Her

"Being transgender is embracing the most beautiful, difficult, and complex parts of being human. We uniquely connect to the world through expression, vulnerability, and honesty."

She/Her

"Being Trans is a complicated thing, especially in recent times, when we have to constantly defend our existence against an opposition that thinks they know us better than we do, and labor under the delusion that their opinion of us actually matters.

Being Trans means having to come out to everyone, all the time. It means being gas-lighted by our families, conservative wingnuts, and spiritual communities. It means living under a microscope.
Being trans is wondering if today is the day that some confused moron violently ends your life. It’s challenging the concept of gender, and freeing the masses to define for themselves what their gender means to them as individuals. It’s forcing the world to unpack their own hurt and discomfort, and deal with it, despite themselves.
Being trans dismantles the binary supremacy, confronts toxicity, and introduces a limitless potential for expression, thereby moving society forward.
But being trans is also brave and intersectional. It’s community and chosen family. It’s taking a risk on yourself, and defining your identity on your terms and to hell with anyone else. It is education, and it is protest.
Being trans is growth. It is beautiful and trans-formative. For many, being trans is choosing to live, and to do so in a boldly honest and authentic way.
For me, being trans is all these things and more, but mostly, being transgender is freedom." 

She/Her

"Being trans is admitting a belief in magic. its more than just the clothes and the statement, it’s the acknowledgment and the awareness that YOU were meant to be more than what you were born, more than the name others gave you, more than expectations and goals… and dreams that were not your own.
being trans is ripping yourself free from the ties holding you to a place you never felt truly comfortable.
it’s a sense of warmth and comfort in now knowing that little voice in the back of your head wasn’t lying, it wasn’t hurting you. it was telling you to run towards your gut feeling and let yourself be true.
there is only one you that’s you, so why not be the truest you there ever was." 

They/Them

"Being trans is what you make of your own identity. There is no wrong or right way to be. Living your authentic life is what it's all about."

She/They

"To me, being transgender means possessing a deeper, more powerful sense of self awareness and self love. Creating an identity that’s unique to you from the ground up, not built on any preconceived notions of others, and blossoming into a body & soul that resonate with you is not easy. To become your true self, you have to understand yourself, your desires, your fears, your passions, which is a rare and beautiful quality to have in itself. Every step of your transition is an act of self love."

She/Her

"Being transgender for me was difficult to accept. I didn't feel right masked but testosterone... For years I knew that what I saw in the mirror wasn't me. After years of watching transition timelines and working at a salon that's more diverse in clientèle I had the opportunity to be a mentee to a wonderful, talented, and amazing stylist. Her name is Sunshine. With her help she helped me to have the courage to start unmasking my current self to start getting to know the women behind the mask her name is Skylar Rose Torres and it feels so amazing to finally get to know myself."

She/Her

"There is so much beauty in being genuine to yourself."

She/They

"Being transgender means being honest with myself and the world around me."

She/Her

"It's a process of understanding myself, an exercise in risk and reward, being prepared for the unexpected, aligning the body and soul. I am blessed to be part of this community."

He/They

"Being authentically my true self has been the gateway to my happiness. While happiness can not be obtained just by "coming out," being able to be genuine and confident in my own skin has opened so many doors for me. I hope that others are able to find the peace I have been able to find for themselves."

They/Them

"My transness is not defined by what I look like, what body parts I do or don’t have, or how I have transitioned. My transness is fluid, like watercolors blending into each other across a canvas. It is feminine, masculine, and entirely neither all at once. It is pink and blue and purple and orange and yellow blending into a beautiful sun-kissed glow. Being trans means that I am allowed to have control over my own life, as is - or at least should - everyone else. It means freedom, joy, overcoming adversity. It means discovering pieces of myself, broken and unbroken, every day. Being trans means supporting others in experiencing and living their transness. It means stepping in and stepping up when myself and my trans and intersex siblings can’t access the healthcare or the basic human rights we need to survive. It means teaching others about transness and fostering empathy. Being trans means community. It means hope. It means a chance at living."

She/Her

"Being trans to me means being authentic to your identity regardless of how difficult and hard it may be. We are beautiful regardless of how society treats us. We are resilient and will not be silenced."

Any

"I fall under the gender non-conforming part of our wonderful group. To me crossdressing is a way to explore myself and say screw you to the status quo of the idea of only two genders and our patriarchal society."

She/Her

"Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming, and Non-Binary (TGNCNB) people demonstrate that humans have the power to grow and change. Even in defiance of systems that tell us we cannot change, even in the face of exclusion, denigration, and discrimination, 𝘄𝗲 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲. Isn’t that a beautiful gift?"

She/Her/They

"Finally being comfortable in my body and how I am perceived."

She/Her

"To me it’s a complex question but also a simple answer. It’s simply moving forward little by little everyday to accomplish a goal. That goal is to feel comfortable in one’s own body regardless of pressures from society or culture. Some days you fall short of your goals but you can’t forget that any progress at all is moving forward even the smallest of one’s.
I always struggle to embrace the idea of life as an unwritten book and we are all our own authors who can choose the destiny of our life. For me it’s never been more true as I avoid giving the antagonists power and write them in history to shame and learn from to show others reading how to beat our adversaries with a smile on our face. Being happy warriors of our minds, bodies, and expression of it makes it impossible to lose."

He/Him

"Being transgender to me is having the capability to overcome and be the truest form of yourself possible, and putting your own happiness first."

They/He

"Finding peace in my body."

She/Her

"Being trans is a gateway to a beautiful, expansive world of in-betweens. It's a way forward through and within the greater world to a life worth living."

He/They

"To be transgender is to feel a connection with your knowing, your longing, and your birth rights. To be transgender is to be attuned to your inner world and your inner workings. To be transgender is to reclaim your body as your own. To be transgender is a declaration of self love, a declaration that says - I deserve to be embodied in my life time."

They/Them

"It means that even though I may not be understood or accepted by most people I still choose to be, and love, my true self. Not every day, but at the end of the day I would rather be able to look at my own reflection and be proud of the person I’m becoming than to destroy myself trying to please anyone else. I’m not just becoming myself, I’m finding myself again."

He/Him

"Being true to myself, full expression, self love, self acceptance, peace, the ability to move forward with confidence and see my life more clearly and allowing others to do the same."

He/Him

"Being trans means having the courage and the means to finally be comfortable in the skin you were born in. Being able to live this life as happy and as comfortable as possible. Teaching others to not allow body parts to define who you are."

They/Them

"Being transgender is the ability to play with my identity and expression - the world is my sandbox."

He/Him

"Being trans means being deeply in touch with who you are. It means a greater insight into your identity, as well as a special connection with a larger community of gender diverse people."

She/They

"Being transgender means living beyond binaries and creating new ways of being in the world. It means being full of gender and radiating that fullness to the world around me. It means being part of a sacred lineage of trans elders stretching through history. It means building new systems that hold my trans siblings in care and love. It means freedom."

He/They

"Being trans means everything. I feel like I am living life for the first time. So much joy and happiness."

She/Her

"It means being my authentic self, it means being happy in life. It means having a unique perspective on life."

She/Her

"To me being trans is love. It's about loving yourself enough to be your most authentic self despite what anybody else things or expects you to be."

He/Him

"Womanhood is like my hometown, and being trans means giving myself permission to move somewhere else. I'm a second-generation transgender parent. My guilt and uncertainty about whether I can do this is a much smaller burden than theirs was - I'm working to build that gift of incremental improvement for the next generation, too."

They/He

"Living free and true, or something approaching it."

She/Her

"To be transgender is to embrace the simultaneous joy and pain of an existence as a physical testament to the divine diversity of the the biological spectrum and the limitless potential of human will."

She/Her

"Being trans is my freedom to experience emotion for the first times. It's not a symptom but a cure. Being trans Is knowing what it's like to not be depressed. Being trans is knowing what it's like to feel beautiful. I now know what it's like to experience and feel real happiness and I can express myself in a way that I want the world to see me."

They/Them

"My gender is fluid and I love it!"

She/Her

"Being transgender to me means that I can be myself. No one can tell me who I am and who I'm not. Being transgender means I don't feel like I have to hide who I want to be and being more true to myself than I have before. It makes me feel more confident in who I am and that I can take on more than what I thought that I could before. It means that no matter what anyone else thinks, I'm still me and who I want to be."

She/Her

"Being trans, to me, means peace. It has allowed me to answer the most fundamental question: "Who are you?" In finally knowing myself, I can become the person I always hoped to be. I wish that we may all find true understanding and love for ourselves in the short time we have."

He/They

"To live authentically, to choose myself over what's expected of me, to be free."

They/She/He

"It means to be fully me, flowing through the genders that we all have known and still are getting familiar with."

He/Him

"For me being trans means being my most authentic self and recognizing myself when I look in the mirror."

Xe/Xem

"I am myself. I allow my self-expression to be fluid and thus find joy in expressing the multifaceted dynamism inherent in being a human spirit. "Neuroqueer" and "autiegender" are words I use to describe my neurodivergent queer experience. I feel whole when I recognize these identities that didn't have names for so long, parts I knew were there but didn't have words for. Being my enby self expands my joy! I surrender the pressure to "fit in" or match the expectations of strangers and others set on misunderstanding me. My joy matters. My identity matters."

No Pronouns

"Transgender to me is being one’s whole self. It is acceptance. It is community. Transgender is strength and bravery and fear mixed together in a timeless and time filled individual. This individual is then connected like a tree’s root system to every Trans person across the planet and across the times.

Transgender, for me, is leaving the space of liminality (in-between) and standing fully as myself. Being Trans is a never ending cauldron of knowledge and of life’s meaning and of warmth when we find our place of belonging. Transgender is a place of belonging, for all those who are a Trans Man, Trans Woman, Trans Masc, Trans Feme, Non-Binary, Gender Fluid, and like myself, Agender.

Transgender is the acceptance we don’t receive in the wider world, because we are capable of a deeper empathy and being the lantern to shine the way for those who walk among us. We are the guiding light.

And like many Trans people, I have chosen my own name and I wish to end this on that note.
Mauri: I am my own life force, I am my own energy
Lee: I am my own shelter, the only shelter I need
Ray: I am my own light in my own darkness

If you choose to walk with me you will walk inside my hurricane of energy, but I will use my life energy to be your shelter and light in the darkness.

I am Agender, I am Trans"

He/She/They

"Being free of gender roles and rules—free to be myself."

She/Her

"Being Transgender 32 years out of my 50 years means Living my truth Being happy, From an early age i knew the mirror never lied.!!!!"

They/Them

"It means that we are always transitioning in life in the pursuit of happiness no matter what that looks like feels like or sounds like."

He/Him

"Being transgender to me, means that I can authentically live in my soul, mind and spirit. Regardless of what I am told, I know who I am. My journey is what I make of it. Not everyone is my friend but I treat everyone with kindness to see the beauty/light of complexities in our society, especially when it comes to gender/sex. Be trans especially a transgender man I want to model to young men that you don’t have to fit anyone’s criteria of what it means to be trans. Just be genuinely and unapologetic you."

She/Her

"Being Trans for to me is loving the skin your in accepting all your flaws and loving your authentic stuff, embracing who you are, it doesn't matter if surgery is even involved, but being true to who you are."

He/Him They/Them

"Being transgender is far beyond just identifying as societies views of, male & female. It's far more than deciding whether you want to have this surgery, take this hormone, go this direction, or that direction. Being transgender is as rough mentally as it is physically, if you choose that path.
Before transitioning, waking up everyday looking at "myself" in the mirror, I didn't only hate who I saw, I didn't recognize them. Gender Dysphoria at it's best. People kept telling me, "You’re so beautiful. Stop doubting yourself." That's just it, I wasn't myself.
You are constantly striving to become the best version of yourself, your authentic self. Every individual who falls under the transgender umbrella has their own challenges and struggles. They have their personal experiences, and reasons why they choose this path instead of that path.
Not only are you fighting to find your own self, but you have judgmental individuals coming at you in every direction, who don't seem like they want to understand, let alone respect you. Which makes the journey a lot more difficult for most. You need a support team!
While, I believe the majority, transgender individuals just want to live their best life, without other people telling them who they are or who they are not. I personally enjoy educating and bringing awareness to the surface, in hopes that one day we can all live with acceptance.
Understand that you have control of yourself & no one else can define you as an individual. "

She/Her

"Being available to accept who you are being honest, kind. But the mist important looking to be better every day."