Inspirational transgender quotes will challenge the way you think, change the way you live and transform your whole life.
Famous Transgender Quotes
Nature made a mistake, which I have corrected. Christine Jorgensen, US Army veteran and public figure
Love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters? James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room’, 1956
As you can see by the enclosed photos, taken just before the operation, I have changed a great deal. But it is the other changes that are so much more important. Remember the shy, miserable person who left America? Well, that person is no more and, as you can see, I’m in marvelous spirits. Christine Jorgensen
There isn’t a trans moment It’s just a presence where there was an absence. We deserve so much more. Hari Nef, The New Yorker, 2016
I’ve never been interested in being invisible and erased. Laverne Cox, actress and LGBTQ advocate
But you can only lie about who you are for so long without going crazy. Ellen Wittlinger, Parrotfish 2007
I think trans women, and trans people in general, show everyone that you can define what it means to be a man or woman on your own terms. A lot of what feminism is about is moving outside of roles and moving outside of expectations of who and what you’re supposed to be to live a more authentic life. Laverne Cox
Include everyone, no matter their gender, sexual orientation, race, or religion. We are all human beings and we are part of society. Lea T, BBC Interview, 2016
Being transgender is not just a medical transition. It’s about]discovering who you are, living your life authentically, loving yourself, and spreading that love towards other people and accepting one another. Jazz Jennings, LGBTQ rights activist and public figure
I did not want to cheat my own reality. I simply wasn’t able to do that. My education, my very being, was telling me to be honest with myself. Manabi Bandyopadhyay, Interview with Caravan, 2015
I can’t begin to express how remarkable it feels to finally love who I am enough to pursue my authentic self. Elliot Page, actor
If a transvestite doesn’t say I’m gay and I’m proud and I’m a transvestite, then nobody else is going to hop up there and say I’m gay and I’m proud and I’m a transvestite for them. Marsha P. Johnson, Out of the Closets: Voices of Gay Liberation 1972
The more I hold myself close and fully embrace who I am, the more I thrive. Elliot Page
Openness may not completely disarm prejudice, but it’s a good place to start. Jason Collins, The Gay Athlete, Sports Illustrated, 2013
There’s a gender in your brain and a gender in your body. For 99 percent of people, those things are in alignment. For transgender people, they’re mismatched. That’s all it is. It’s not complicated, it’s not a neurosis. It’s a mix up. It’s a birth defect, like a cleft palate. Chaz Bono, public figure
I think trans women, and trans people in general, show everyone that you can define what it means to be a man or woman on your own terms. A lot of what feminism is about is moving outside of roles and moving outside of expectations of who and what you’re supposed to be to live a more authentic life. Laverne Cox, DAME Interview, 2014
I never say ‘trans but, always ‘trans and.Because it’s like, no, I don’t hide who I am. People know exactly who I am here. Danica Roem, journalist and politician
Nature made a mistake, which I have corrected. Christine Jorgensen, Letter to her parents.
There isn’t a trans moment It’s just a presence where there was an absence. We deserve so much more. Hari Nef, actress and model
Trans people are extraordinary, strong, intelligent, persistent and resilient. We have to be. And we will not stand for the picking and choosing of rights. We still have hope. Grace Dolan Sandrino, Interview with the Washington Post, 2017.
All of us are put in boxes by our family, by our religion, by our society, our moment in history, even our own bodies. Some people have the courage to break free. Geena Rocero, model and transgender advocate
If I wait for someone else to validate my existence, it will mean that I’m shortchanging myself. Zanele Muholi.
We are all assigned a gender at birth. Sometimes that assignment doesn’t match our inner truth, and there needs to be a new place a place for self identification. Geena Rocero
Being transgender, like being gay, tall, short, white, black, male, or female, is another part of the human condition that makes each individual unique and something over which we have no control. We are who we are in the deepest recesses of our minds, hearts, and identities. Linda Thompson.
My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. Audre Lorde, ‘The Cancer Journals,’ 1980.
We used to accept this crap of: We’re not worthy, and We shouldn’t exist’ We’ve got to revolt, and we’ve got to reclaim who we are and let these people realize, before they came along, we were honored and worshiped and appreciated and adored. If this world is going to get its act together, they have to support and put in the front to lead this revolution the people who are the most oppressed, which is my Black transgender community. Miss Major Griffin Gracy, civil rights advocate
Every gay and lesbian person who has been lucky enough to survive the turmoil of growing up is a survivor. Survivors always have an obligation to those who will face the same challenges. Bob Paris, Straight from the Heart, 1995.
We have to remain visible. They have to see us, they have to know that we’re not going nowhere that we’ve been here ever since God made man and woman, and they have to get over it. I don’t need their permission to exist; I exist in spite of them. I want you to train and teach and love on and create families within my community and gender non conforming people, so that we can understand that we have a culture, we have a history, we have a reason to be here. We have a purpose. We’re entitled to be loved, and seek happiness, and share that with the people that we care about. Miss Major Griffin Gracy
The beauty of standing up for your rights is others see you standing and stand up as well. Cassandra Duffy.
I’ve always been Sarah. My gender identity has always existed. I’ve always been a woman. Gay people aren’t straight before they come out as gay, and transgender people are who they are before they come out and transition. Sarah McBride, activist and politician
I cannot afford the luxury of fighting one form of oppression only. I cannot afford to believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group. Audre Lorde
Between Orange with Laverne, the show ‘Transparent, and Caitlyn Jenner, obviously we’re in the middle of something enormous a transgender movement. I’m just proud to be alive during this massive shift in the world. Ruby Rose, actress genderfluid
If you try presenting yourself as something other than your birth assigned gender, and it makes you feel euphoric, that’s just as valid a reason to transition as escaping dysphoria. Laura Kate Dale, 2021
If I wait for someone else to validate my existence, it will mean that I’m shortchanging myself. Zanele Muholi, artist non binary
Being born between two cultures and coming to terms with your queerness sounded a little bit similar. Identities and self acceptance shift in a world where you are not the default. Ellie Freeman, 2021
Our experience of gender is no more or less pathological than that of mainstream society. We have a right to live in a body that matches our self image and deep desires without someone else being the gatekeeper to our experience. Florence Ashley, transfeminine jurist and bioethicist
There are a lot of youth who are ostracized and marginalized because of their sexuality in the name of faith, so to have platforms where they can reconcile both their spirituality and sexuality is quite important. Nur Warsame, 2017
The best thing about being a girl is, now I don’t have to pretend to be a boy. Avery Jackson, LGBTQ youth advocate
Coming out erases the nuances of my cultural identity and the identities of many others like me. It fails to grasp the subtleties, dynamics and movement of oneself. The narratives surrounding coming out constantly try to convince queers and femmes that we somehow have to prove ourselves to be legitimate. Asiel Adan Sanchez, 2017
We have to be visible. We are not ashamed of who we are. Sylvia Rivera, transgender rights activist
A gentle reminder on this day that the gender binary arrived with colonization and is upheld today through a colonial lens and structure in so called Australia Hayden Moon, 2020
When I was younger, I wish I would have been told more often that I was right and nothing was wrong with me, that I was deserving of everything this world has to offer, and that my visions for my future were worthy of pursuit. Janet Mock, transgender rights activist
The oppression of trans women and cis women are expressions of the same societal force of misogyny. So if we leave trans women out of our feminism, we can’t reckon with misogyny in all its forms, and all women, trans and cis, suffer. Emily Hamann, n.d
I’m saying goodbye to people’s perception of me and who I am; I’m not saying goodbye to me, because this has always been me. Caitlyn Jenner, Olympian and media personality
Pride is about resistance, and specifically resistance through community solidarity. Joanne Zou, 2021
When I was little, the idea of waking up as a girl was like a fairytale. I had this idea that I’d meet a witch who would transform me. From the moment I found out that it was actually possible, I went to bed each night feeling that when it happens, it will be the best day of my life. And it was! Andreja Pejic, model and actress
Queer people have a unique relationship to kinship, as they often possess at least one distinct identity from those of their immediate biological family members; as such they have often sought to or been forced to form non biological kinship networks. Drew Heckman, 2019
I’m more a collector of identities and words that feel right to me. To me this is an inarguable point. I am who I say I am and that’s not up for debate. Ian Harvie, comedian and actor
After years, I had families. I have a family. More than one, all but one chosen, and the one I was given, remade. We decide the details of these families, it isn’t verified anywhere, and the only proof of it is lived. Kavya Murthy, 2018
It is always brave to insist on undergoing transformations that feel necessary and right even when there are so many obstructions to doing so, including people and institutions who seek to pathologize or criminalize such important acts of self definition. I know that for some it feels less brave than necessary, but we all have to defend those necessities that allow us to live and breathe in the way that feels right to us. Surgical intervention can be precisely what a trans person needs it is also not always what a trans person needs. Either way, one should be free to determine the course of one’s gendered life. Judith Butler, philosopher and gender theorist
Gender diversity is part of our reality. The sooner we can hold space for the complexity of this, the closer we will come to a future that celebrates all genders and sexualities, and cares for and protects all bodies. Shannon May Powell, 2021
Trans people are extraordinary, strong, intelligent, persistent and resilient. We have to be. And we will not stand for the picking and choosing of rights. We still have hope. Grace Dolan Sandrino, activist and artist
We seek the proliferation of possibility that blooms when people can self fashion their own ways of living, loving, and looking. Alok V. Menon, 2020
I don’t know what I am if I’m not a woman. Marsha P. Johnson, LGBTQ activist
Each step forwards to become the person we are makes it harder to go backwards, to return to the shadowy, private world of closed doors and shuttered windows. The experience, the awakening of one’s true self, after being so long suppressed, can never be adequately explained with language. Lili Elbe, painter, from Lili: A Portrait of the First Sex Change
All governments want to appoint one person from a weaker community to a top post so that voices of others of the community are muffled. I would not let that happen. Joyita Mondal, 2018 on being appointed India’s first transgender judge.
Breaking apart the forced unity of sex and gender, while increasing the scope of liveable lives, needs to be a central goal of feminism and other forms of social justice activism. This is important for everybody, especially, but not exclusively, for trans people. Susan Stryker, professor and author
When you become the image of your own imagination, it’s the most powerful thing you could ever do. RuPaul, public figure
