I would say a sense of humor… you have to have a sense of humor
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
I think a lot of queer people have to be overeducated to make it far… But then when we talk to others, people get lost in our academic talk. So it’s about ‘how can we put things in a way that somebody who doesn’t have as much dedication [to these issues] understand it?’ So being able to break down ideas in a really simple way
Ability to stop and listen, and the ability to connect with people emotionally. That’s something that comes from being queer. Like when we meet each other, what’s the first thing we do? We talk about our coming out story. We crave that emotional connection. So I’m able to connect with them emotionally and in a way that they may not be used to