It’s taught me to be more compassionate. As a person who is South Asian, understanding the challenges immigrants have and those who English isn’t their first language… Seeing the struggles my parents went through in the workforce, and the experiences I went through coming into the school system here that was predominately white at the time, helped shape me from that perspective
I’ve had to work 10 times harder to get to where I am… It makes me resilient, it makes me tenacious in the sense that I don’t give up. I’ve had to learn how to use my voice and a lot of people I think are quite complacent… It’s hard to say whether this is fully due to me being queer or trans, but being in these communities really makes me think a lot more about that stuff
When you go through something really difficult, it can harden you or it can soften you and help you understand humanity in a different way. I’m really lucky that I’ve been able to process things and I think it helps me understand the value of diversity