Nicole Maines

“I think everything's going to turn out pretty well for me.”

“At some point, I want to create a family and help them on their journey like my family helped me on mine.”

“I think kids need to watch 'Supergirl' for Nia, because there are more and more trans people coming out younger and younger.”

“I hope I can help convince people there that being transgender is not a big deal and that we are just average people trying to go to school, work, and live good lives.”

“Now that we've seen broader representation of trans identities, I think it's safer to explore the fault in these trans characters and make them entirely human and three dimensional.”

“I know from first-hand experience that separating transgender students from their peers can cause many to leave school, hide who they are, or even do the unthinkable.”

“I think, for all trans people, it's not our only defining feature, but it is a defining feature.”

“Kids and just young people in general are usually a lot more, I guess, open-minded to change. Especially when you're really little in elementary school, you don't expect a lot of things from people, so if somebody says, 'I'm switching genders,' you're just sort of like, 'OK, that's new. But cool.'”

“We tried our best to work with the school and with the other families in the school system, and we did a gradual transition. I started transitioning when I was in first grade, and every year we kind of tacked a new thing on to it.”

“More than anything, I want fans to take away an understanding of trans people that we can be anybody.”

“I knew that I was trans when I was three years old. Well, I didn't know 'trans' because I didn't know there was a word for it, but I just knew that in my head and my heart that I was supposed to be a girl.”

“When I was first trying to explain to my parents that I was really a girl, my father didn't know what to do. He had these preconceived notions about what his family was going to be like, and when I didn't fit into those notions, he just ignored what I was trying to tell them before he really came around.”

“My family knew that they loved me, and whatever this 'I want to be a girl' business was, it certainly wasn't about to change that.”

“Having trans people play trans roles show that we are valid in our identities, and we exist.”

“The most inspirational person in my life has been my mother.”

“Historically, we have seen cis men play trans women and vice versa. That casting breaks through the fourth wall, and it gives people the message that trans people are being played by cis men in real life, which is where we get this idea of men in dresses.”

“Cisgender actors don't take trans roles out of malice. I think it's just failure to realize the context behind having cisgender people play transgender characters because we don't see the same issue with sexuality.”

“I am transgender. I knew that I was for as long as I can remember.”

“My father grew up very conservative, and he really had set expectations for what boys and girls were supposed to be like. So when I came out to him, that did not fit into his plan of what raising twin boys was going to be like.”

“Growing up, I was from kind of Nowhere, Maine. And, so, now having thousands of people reaching out to me via social media and thousands of people paying attention to what I say, that's really weird.”