I always joke about how I get excited to go to the grocery store without permission.

Showing your own righteousness by pointing out someone's unrighteousness, the race to the bottom, the transgressions getting smaller and smaller and smaller but still treated with the same level of intolerance and condemnation, all of that stuff, even as I say it I am talking about Twitter but I am thinking about Westboro.

Even though I was 27 when I left, I still was largely treated like a child, because I wasn't married. My parents, my mother specifically, knew where I was and what I was doing at all times.

The things I believe in now are grace and the power of human connection to change hearts and minds and the importance of civil dialogue.

We read the whole Bible, cover to cover, over and over again... It wasn't that we read selective parts of the Bible. It was that we interpreted it in this very selective way.

We were supposed to be able to use the Bible's words to explain what we were doing, and if we couldn't do that, then we shouldn't be doing it.

We held signs that said 'Thank God For Dead Soldiers,' 'Thank God For IEDs.'

I'm constantly meeting people that I hurt, you know? This is not - when I go and talk about these things, this is not a theoretical - it's not a theoretical apology. It's something that I live every day.

I will say, this is something, this praying for people to die thing, that's something that I came to believe was unscriptural. And for years, I made these arguments to my family, in writing, privately in letters that didn't get responses and in interviews. And for a while, they just doubled down. Eventually, they came to stop doing it.

I got on Twitter in 2009.

My family, they cannot have anything to do with us. They believe that, you know, their duty is to deliver me to Satan for the destruction of the flesh.

Generally, people don't change their minds about fundamentally deeply held beliefs; it doesn't happen in an instant - it's a process.

When I got on Twitter, that was the first time I was able to have lasting relationships with outsiders. And even though they were limited to those 140 characters, it was the duration of the friendships and the rapport we were able to develop.

The pickets were just a fact of life. And the fact that people hated us from the time I was tiny, the fact that we were hated, I was taught, was a cause for great rejoicing.

As happy as we were in our backyard jumping on trampolines, it was the same general feeling, often euphoria, on the picket line, because we felt like the way our lives were falling on to us contorted with the people of God and the scriptures. It all felt very normal.

We thought it was our duty to go and warn people of the consequences of their sins, and I understood that to be the definition of loving our neighbour.

I don't believe in God anymore.

I don't like to say I'm not a believer because I still feel like a believer in a lot of things, primarily hope and grace and the power of human connection.

In my home, life was framed as an epic spiritual battle between good and evil.

As a member of Westboro Baptist Church, I became a fixture on picket lines across the country.

My church's antics were such that we were constantly at odds with the world. That reinforced our 'otherness' on a daily basis.

Since leaving the church, I've been working with law enforcement involved in counterterrorism and deradicalization. I hoped that illuminating Westboro's ideology - and especially the unraveling of that ideology - would be useful to the people doing that work.

Take heart, and be patient; change takes time but it is possible, and it's way more likely if we can reach out and disagree without demonizing.

When we lose hope that there is a possibility of reaching the other side - I don't even like to say the 'other side' because there are so many sides, and breaking it down into us/them is oversimplifying - it allows us to treat people in a way that's incredibly destructive.

We were raised to believe that our way of seeing the world was the only way.

I try to focus on using my energy to change things, but there are times when I feel so bad.

I believe in so much - I believe in people. I believe in hope.

It really bugs me that Twitter gets such a bad rep.

I don't think that, if you do everything else in your life right and you happen to be gay, you're automatically going to hell.

I don't believe any more that WBC has a monopoly on truth.

I don't believe any more that God hates almost all of mankind.

There's a learned helplessness for a lot of people who are leaving Westboro because you're not allowed to have any kind of independence when you are there so a lot of people don't have practical life skills.

I feel like I was transformed by the kindness of people who had every reason to show me cruelty and the transformative power of their decision to treat me like a human being, that was so huge, that anytime somebody wants me to talk about that I feel like I absolutely want to do that.

My life was forever changed by people who took the time and had the patience to learn my story and to share theirs with me. They forsook judgment and came to me with kindness and empathy and the impact of that decision was huge.

It's not just about being sexy, it's about being confident and me being confident in my sexuality.

Once you really know yourself, can't nobody tell you nothing about you.

Confidence literally starts from yourself. You have to go look in the mirror at yourself. If you don't like what you see, you're going to give off that energy.

To be a Hottie you gotta have a lot of self-love, a lot of confidence, you gotta be able to put your foot down. Hotties are supposed to turn other people into Hotties too. If you see someone that's not quite confident, you gotta be the Hottie to gas up your friend.

I was an only child so, at home, I'm turnt up by myself, doing whatever I wanna do.

I feel like, when people realize that they are the only person they need to impress, everybody's life will be a lot smoother.

I don't feel like I'm in competitive with anybody. If I'm worried about beating somebody else, I'm not going to be the best version of me. It shouldn't be a competition because somebody else winning is not going to make me lose.

Us boss chicks have to continue to stick together and change the game.

Women make the world go round.

When you go to college you can just be whoever you wanna be. So I got there and I'm like, Yeah, I'ma rapper.

I'm just a real person, not a caricature.

If you've got love for me, then I'm gonna have love for you, period.

Not every day is a good day for me.

I really like Pam Grier's whole 'Coffy' aesthetic. It's just natural. It's not even anything that they were overdoing back then. I really like that natural beauty kind of thing. But at the same time, I really like thick, winged eyeliner.

I spent a lot of time drawing and writing little comic books, and my mom was a rapper, so I would steal her instrumentals.

I'm so blessed, thank you Jesus!