Angelica Ross

Basically, I'm working on global domination. I plan to have members globally. What I'm looking to do is expand in a way that allows us to provide more access and take advantage of the sort of 'world is flat' technology platform, where it doesn't matter where you're located. ”

What I would love to happen is to have people at the top of their game - straight, gay, cisgender, transgender, whatever - to volunteer with us, as long as they have something of value to offer and they see the value in our community. ”

Somebody, just because they are black, too, or just because they are trans, too, or just because they're gay and recognize I'm trans, does that mean you have the familiarity to use certain language? And I don't mean with just me but with the community. ”

In 2014, I left my job and launched TransTech Social Enterprises, a for-profit and nonprofit hybrid model focusing on the well-being of the trans community, not on external profits for shareholders. ”

Media is a double-edged sword and has the power to change hearts and minds through authentic storytelling as well as the power to paint a person, or an entire community, in a dim and misleading light. ”

A man is able to take me to a restaurant, but he's not able to take me home to mom. Society is still not at a place yet where they see us as family. ”

I was kicked out of my own house and had my own drag mother, you know, a house mother. Things with my family are great now - my mom and dad were at the premiere - but they had kicked me out. ”

After I came out to my mother at 17, I ran away from home and lived with a friend. We come from a highly religious family, and she could not accept it. It was devastating, and I was depressed. ”

I had always been pegged for being feminine. People would always say, 'Ooh, that's a pretty little girl.' They would talk about my eyelashes or that I was sensitive or that I was crying all the time. I didn't want to play in the dirt outside with the boys. ”

I discovered my path to independence through technology as well as the potential for a global lifeline for trans people around the world who were looking for the same. ”