Angelica Ross

“I get by mostly on speaking engagements, but as soon as I try to pay myself, I end up having to give it back to the business to cover operating expenses or other unplanned costs.”

“I have the drive to spend five hours a day to teach myself a skill.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I don't know that I had context for being trans until I moved to Rochester, New York, to pursue my dream of acting, and started going to drag shows. I had never seen a transsexual before, and I didn't yet fully understand my own identity.”

“You always have some trans girl saying, 'Oh, they were just being funny! They aren't really transphobic,' Just like you will always have some black folks defending some white person for using the 'N' word because they are 'cool.'”

“I always have believed in the value of the diversity and resilience and just, really, the different skill sets that our community has. But we've never been able to find the right platform and find the right environment for us as a community - for us as a professional community.”

“Having a skill makes you undeniable.”

“There are cis women who are being attacked and called men because they are wearing makeup and because they are too tall, and they might have an Adam's apple. Once cis women start to realize it's not just harmful to trans women, then we'll start to come together more and attack this together. It sucks, but we're all under the patriarchy.”

“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.”

“We have to learn to be allies to each other. We are in a deficit of financial and social capital, and TransTech aims to help trans people reverse that.”

“Technology has flattened a world where trans people are demanding their rights in the U.S. and abroad. TransTech Social Enterprises is here to empower, educate, and employ them no matter where they are. I could not turn down an opportunity for global exposure that our efforts alone might not have ever afforded us.”

“I've always had big dreams and very little means.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Often, if someone wants to date me because they know I'm trans, it's for specifically sexual reasons, and it doesn't ever lead to a relationship.”

“I made a naive decision, and I joined the Navy. I figured I would use the G.I. Bill to pay for any college I wanted. I dreamed of going to Julliard to study music and acting.”

“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.”

“They were totally uplifting my work and gave me a platform, and now I have an ongoing relationship with the White House. We're working on some very, very, very big things for the trans 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.”