Nicole Maines

“With trans folks, we have a lot of people accusing us of just playing dress up for whatever reasons, and that's just not true.”

“When we have a trans woman playing a trans woman, then you see, 'Oh wait, this is what trans really is. This is what it looks like: a person.' That sends a message to trans kids that they are valid in their identities that they are allowed to exist.”

“Gender is a spectrum, and that's something that a lot of folks don't understand.”

“I did a guest episode of 'Royal Pains,' and then right after that, 'Supergirl' happened, and I was like, 'How did I get here?' Every day, I walk on set, and I'm waiting for someone to be like, 'Ma'am, you can't be here.'”

“Everybody loves superheroes, and so to be associated with a superhero forever is just kind of like, that's where the goalposts are. That's kind of, 'Bam, you're immortalized!'”

“Children are a lot smarter than we give them credit for.”

“Separate but equal does not work.”

“I had been on puberty suppressants and hormone suppressants, so I did not go through male puberty.”

“I think it is necessary to educate folks on trans issues and to make them aware of trans identities and normalise it, because it is normal. But when you're shielded from something, and it's actively censored, it takes a negative connotation.”

“It's good to have a free space to laugh and cry and get angry about gender and sexuality. That's one of the things I am the most thankful for from my friends and my family. They've given me the place to freely have gender be a part of our discourse.”

“For a number of years at my public elementary school in rural Maine, I was treated like all the other girls in school. That changed in September 2007 when a male classmate, set on a path by his grandfather, followed me into the girls' restroom. The end result was that I had to use the school's staff bathroom - just me, no one else.”

“It's OK not to understand the whole trans thing. That's alright. My dad didn't understand it. I still don't know everything. What's important is you sort of educate yourself on your own time, but you have to respect it on everyone else's time. Because no one should have to wait for equality.”

“The thought of being a boy makes me cringe. I just couldn't do it.”

“I think our society has sort of built this gender binary, and the way we've said it exists does not really exist in nature.”