I didn't really have anyone in particular who inspired me or that I found fascinating as a kid. It wasn't until I was in my early twenties that I began to find people - and they were all historic figures - that I began to relate to and find some inspiration in.
I also request that, starting today, you refer to me by my new name and use the feminine pronoun (except in official mail to the confinement facility).
The sole relief I am asking for is to be released from military prison after serving six years of confinement as a person who did not intend to harm the interests of the United States or harm any service members.
I really don't care how I am perceived by people on the outside.
Investigative journalism and reporting has become much more dangerous. This is especially true for journalists and sources in National Security - but it has been getting pretty bad for beat reporters and small outlets doing local reporting, too.
I can only ask of those who care about me and the issues in my case to support me and spread the word about what is going on.
Day-to-day life is as simple as it is routine - though my days are often long and very busy.
There is an awful lot of work to do to protect trans folks. We are still disproportionally poor and administratively and institutionally discriminated against at all levels of society.
I have served a sufficiently long sentence. I am not asking for a pardon of my conviction.
There are very few distinctions between el bueno and el malo en la prisión militar. Instead of the good and the bad, there is the boring and la repetición - the repetitive. The routine is as endless as it is numbing.
I don't think that I'm embracing any kind of leadership for transparency or trans advocacy.
I am merely asking for a first chance to live my life outside the [U.S. Disciplinary Barracks] as the person I was born to be.
As a young kid, I spent a lot of time exploring the world around me.
While being tossed around the world from place to place as a teenager, I wasn't really tethered to any place or anyone.
I think the embryonic digital world had the same affect on me as the openness of the old American frontier.
I lived a few miles outside of a tiny town in central Oklahoma. I would often run amok though the fields of wheat, the patches of trees, along the railroad tracks, and on red dirt roads. This had a profound effect on my view of the world - vast, open-ended, full of opportunity, and ready for exploration.
Donations to my legal defense fund really help, and I think keeping me motivated and spreading the message are also very important.
On a transparency front, I would say that I certainly dream of a world in which our local, state, and national and international governments and other organizations have a 21st century, digital-era transparency built into them by default.
I am really passionate about transparency and trans rights issues, so I embrace these opportunities to speak. I try to stay in touch with those who are prominent in both the trans and transparency movements, but more often than not, I am speaking out on a particular issue on my own. I certainly hope that people listen to me and think about these issues. But regardless of whether I had a public venue to speak in, I would still be passionate about them.
There is far more to transitioning in the public eye than money, public relations, and logistics.
The most important people for me, at least in the last couple of years since I came out, are my supersecret trans friends and confidantes. I think I need to come up with a code name for this circle.
