The art of what they call female impersonation, or the drag shows, really helped me to hone what type of woman I was.

I was cast in commercials, music videos, and booked a lot of modeling jobs. But my acting career never took off because I was holding myself back. I was acting across from male partners who didn't know that I am trans. I was being taught by teachers who didn't know.

Visibility has an effect on those who are privileged; it brings more privilege, and on those who are marginalized, it brings more marginalization, because it also brings a spotlight onto them where they're at, in the hood or in certain places that are less tolerable.

Pose' makes the case that it's important to have some sort of family structure, even if you have to create one. You know, if I go back home for a while, my mom will be like, 'Oh, I didn't really throw you out the house.' And I know so many other LGBT parents who don't really own or talk about the rejection, and it prevents healing.

I have two children. I have a daughter 29, and a daughter four. They are 25 years apart, so you speak about generations and I must tell you, I have a philosophy and that is every 25 years I'm going to sire another child.

One of the things I like about the show is it redefines the idea of what it is to be a mother, which at its most basic level is to take care of a child. It doesn't mean you have to look like the ladies in the Lysol commercials.

I have a great love for nature. That must have started somewhere down back home, I think, because my family own one of the better known gardens in Soochow, so I played there, and I lived there, and so I must have absorbed something there. So I continue to have a great interest in nature.

When I am made fun of in the press I just remember those days when I'd come home to find that the water had been turned off because my mother couldn't afford the bill. Suddenly, everything feels easier.