I Know What I Want!

I Have A Lot Of Feminist Idols. My Favorite Thing About Growing Up In Arkansas - Well, Not Favorite But Something I've Always Felt Grateful For - Was That I Really Had To Dig For What I Could. There Was No Internet. There Wasn't Tons Of Feminist Literature Floating Around.

It's Funny How Something So Normal And Mundane That You See Every Day-your Body-can Be Controversial. The Shock Value Is Intense. It's Like Carrying An Art Piece Around With You All The Time.

Even Talking, I'm Super-loud. I Could Never Have That Kind Of Meek, Little Wispy Whimsical Lavender And Lace Voice. It Comes From My Body. There's No Way I Can Fight It.

We Had So Many Milestones In America. We Were On Our Way To Universal Healthcare. We Had Gay Marriage. We Were Talking About Gender Fluidity And Trans Issues Openly And Discussing Them With Respect. It Was Almost To The Point Where Educating People About Transgender Rights Wasn't An Issue. We Were Including Trans People As A Normal Part Of Our Conversations Instead Of Seeing Their Presence As This Shocking Thing To The System. We Forgot That Those Things Can Be Taken Away From You Because There Are People In The World That, For Whatever F - King Reason, Can't Live And Let Live.

I Grew Up With The Motto Of "they Can't Kill You And Eat You," And I Still Think That's Right. You Sure As Hell Can't! When It Comes To Speaking About My Body Makes Other People Uncomfortable But It Doesn't Make Me Uncomfortable. It Makes Them Think More About Themselves Than It Makes Them Judge Me. I've Always Had This Body And Had To Live With It. I've Never Been A Little Thing. I've Been Smaller But I've Never Been Small, Even As A Baby. I've Never Had That Window Into That Kind Of World Where People Only Talk To You Because You're Conventionally Sexy.