A biography for Carmen Carrerahasn’t been written yet.
“When you don't have a support system, and you're constantly being bullied for who you are, and you begin to not accept yourself for who you are, it's a distraction from schoolwork. It's a distraction from learning and from growing.”
“Everyone else is following these male and female tracks that have already been set for them, but when you're trans there is no trail.”
“Growing up, I didn't really watch the Victoria's Secret fashion show too much. I really just saw folks who weren't real to me, so it didn't really interest me.”
“I don't know any lingerie brands that really embrace transgender women at all, to be honest.”
“I don't dedicate my whole life to being a trans advocate. But I do believe that me, and how I represent myself and how I am honest and open to everybody, I do feel like I'm doing something for the trans community.”
“I want to be able to supply the knowledge that transgender women need in order to live peacefully and become accepted among all men and women.”
“When you live this trans experience, there's a point and time in your life that you almost stop developing because you don't know where to go.”
“My life isn't really that different from a biological female.”
“Honestly, when I was a boy and I was out as a gay boy, I never really dealt with anyone bullying me or anything like that.”
“Respectable transwomen were not as visible and very unclear in how they defined themselves. I had no one to look up to, pre-transition.”
“The way I see things is that, I think that transgender people are super brave. If you're a female to male, male to female, if you're that brave to take control of your own body and make it however you want it to be, more power to you.”
“I know during my transition it was difficult for me to stop believing I would be stuck unhappy forever, but that's not true. Physical changes take a while but internal feelings of changing and finding your peace can take way longer.”
“When you transition, it's a long process. Some people are so, like, ignorant about it. They're like, 'Oh she's a girl tomorrow.' It's not like that. You have to literally, you take all this medication. It's really hard on your body.”
“If I ever feel like I don't know what to do next, I always think about WWJD, like 'what would J-Lo do,' 'cause J-Lo for me is like the epitome of feminine sensuality, mixed with show stopping beauty.”
“I want to be a successful trans woman burlesque performer.”
“And I come from a very proud Hispanic family. We're proud to be Latino. We're proud to be Peruvian. And my dad's side is proud to be Puerto Rican.”
“I like to jump around, and it takes a long time for people to catch up to me sometimes.”
“I always try to think about what I can do to let people know that I'm just like everyone else. I have two girls here at home I'm trying to raise. I'm trying to be a good stepmom. I'm trying to stay fit and be a good model and break ground in the acting world. I'm working that same struggle every other woman is trying to work.”
“I'm not Laverne Cox. I'm not Janet Mock... I'm just a girl from New Jersey who has experience and lived.”
“I ended up going to public school in the first grade, and that's when I knew I had to be very strategic about my survival in school. I tried my best to be friends with people who were going to protect me.”