I'm a very competitive person. But I think that's good.

I have no clue why, but maybe sometimes when there's someone you don't hear from, it's the person you want to hear from the most.

I really don't know anything else because my brothers were famous when I was two years old. So I know nothing else, no other life.

I'm a true believer in prayer, a big believer in prayer.

I wanted to be on my own and get out of the house. We were the kind of kids that - we - obeyed our parents. If they said no, you don't ask why.

I have a very strong family.

That's always - that's been another dream of mine, to do a Broadway play. An award winning Broadway play.

I don't have a lot of friends.

I always get bored with my hair. That's why I would always change it throughout my career.

Recording is more autobiographical than acting. It's me - either how I'm feeling then or once felt at some point in my life. It's all me.

We're all driven to premieres or nightclubs and seen the rope separating those who can enter and those who can't. Well, there's also a velvet rope we have inside of us, keeping others from knowing our feelings.

I was very independent growing up, but there were things that were bothering me that I never told anybody. I would talk to our animals at home.

I was never pushed into the religion by my mother or anyone else. I made up my own mind when I was old enough. I am not a religious person, but I am spiritual.

I do think kids should be kids. You have the rest of your life to be an adult.

When I gained weight in 2005, my nutritionist was very worried. I was close to having diabetes.

I don't like to work out, and I get bored easily.

When I'm getting ready for a tour, I'll work out with the dancers.

Being on 'Good Times' was the first time I was around a group of people that wasn't my family.

Acting was always my first passion.

Control meant not only taking care of myself but living in a much less protected world. And doing that meant growing a tough skin.

In 1977, at age ten, I was cast on the TV sitcom 'Good Times.' My character was Penny, an abused child in desperate need of love. I really didn't want to do the show. I didn't want to be away from my family.

When marginalized people gain voice and center their own experiences, things begin changing. And we see this in all kinds of grassroots movements.

There's power in naming yourself, in proclaiming to the world that this is who you are. Wielding this power is often a difficult step for many transgender people because it's also a very visible one.

Like many teens, I struggled with my body and looks, but my despair was amplified by the expectations of cisnormativity and the gender binary as well as the impossibly high beauty standards that I, and my female peers, measured myself against.

I just love to glow, glow glow, so with my skincare and makeup routine, I gravitate to products that help me achieve that sun-kissed, dewy look.

My personal style really started in my teens when I gained purchasing power to actually buy my own damn clothes. For so long, my parents dictated what I wore, which largely was their way of containing me within the gender binary.

Popular culture is most powerful when it offers us a vision of how our society should look - or at least reproduces our reality.

I don't chase beauty trends.

Media gatekeepers - editors, publishers, film studios and the like - need to begin investing in talent behind the scenes, developing and resourcing marginalized voices to tell their own stories. At the end of the day, it's about the story and what will enable the audience to truly see, understand, and know the life and times of the subject.

Great conversations always spark in a genuine interest to recognize and know the other person's story and, therefore, recognizing and understanding and celebrating their humanity.

Our differences are what make us great. Let us think about how we can extend this appreciation to people of color, undocumented immigrants, and other members of the community.

If anyone can be said to embody the American Dream, it's Kim Kardashian West.

I don't feel as if I'm typecast - like any writer, the difficulty is that one facet of my identity becomes louder, obscuring the fact that I'm also a woman, a writer, a lover of pop culture and other things.

When you hear anyone policing the bodies of trans women, misgendering and othering us, and violently exiling us from spaces, you should not dismiss it as a trans issue that trans women should speak out against. You should be engaged in the dialogue, discourse, and activism that challenges the very fibers of your movement.

When I was a high school freshman in Honolulu, I would sit with my girlfriends on the bleachers of the school amphitheater every morning. We'd meet in the same spot and chat for an hour before homeroom began.

We are all part of a larger collective looking to create a more beautiful and just world.

For so much of my life, I lived feeling as if, if I spoke, if I said something, I would lose everything. I would be pushed out. No one will want me. No one will love me. No one would want to be friends with me. It took me decades to get to a space of saying, 'This is my truth. This is who I am, and I don't care if you like me or you don't like me.'

We must have the audacity to turn up the frequency of our truths.

Femininity in general is seen as frivolous. People often say feminine people are doing 'the most,' meaning that to don a dress, heels, lipstick and big hair is artifice, fake, and a distraction. But I knew even as a teenager that my femininity was more than just adornments: they were extensions of me, enabling me to express myself and my identity.

When I was younger, I wish I would have been told more often that I was right and nothing was wrong with me, that I was deserving of everything this world has to offer, and that my visions for my future were worthy of pursuit.

I hope being honest about my experiences and contextualizing them empowers young women to step into their truths, tell their own stories, and live visibly.

I was a mixed black girl existing in a westernized Hawaiian culture where petite Asian women were the ideal, in a white culture where black women were furthest from the standard of beauty, in an American culture where trans women of color were invisible.

I think millennials are the most woke generation because they understand that differences are just in the fabric of who we are.

I would advise any 17-year-old to surround yourself with people who listen to you, nod when you speak, and smile when you enter spaces.

I'm an island girl, so I love super bronzy skin!

I learned to hide aspects of my personality. Playing with girls was fine, for example, but playing with their Barbies was something I could do only behind closed doors.

We exist in a culture where trans people are constantly delegitimized.

Trans people are not a monolith.

As a visible and outspoken trans woman myself, I know that it's rare not to have your trans-ness lead the way for you in public spaces.

It was through my hashtag #girlslikeus where I connected with other trans women on Twitter and Tumblr. We had challenging conversations, courageous personal revelations, and shared insights and experiences, and just had fun. The hashtag tethered me to many women in my community in impactful, lasting ways.