Jane Lynch Quotes

It took me a long time to realise that I was a girl as a teenager. At that point I never really believed it. I looked like a boy for a long time. Now, finally, I feel like a woman.

I knew that I was trans when I was three years old. Well, I didn't know 'trans' because I didn't know there was a word for it, but I just knew that in my head and my heart that I was supposed to be a girl.

For me, having a gender identity that was different from my sex assigned at birth and that wasn't seen by society felt like a constant feeling of homesickness - that unwavering ache in the pit of my stomach.

Also, I had read a book called She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders, written by a professor who had gone through transgender surgery, but it took this person well into his thirties to come to terms with the absolute necessity of having to do it.

When I was five, I came to understand that I was not a boy.

I've always known exactly who I am. I was a girl trapped in a boy's body.

I was never going to become a beautiful, passable woman, and I was never going to be a man. It's a quandary. But the trans condition is a beautiful mystery; it's one of nature's best ideas.

Some people say I appeared on the Phil Donahue show to tell 'my' sex change story but I've never appeared on his show for any reason... not even as a member of the studio audience.

Number one, I don't understand a transgender. I don't understand. Is it a guy dressed up like a girl, or a girl dressed up like a guy?

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a boy. I really had gender issues.

My parents started questioning me about whether or not I was transgender - whether or not I was trying to be a woman. It was a big argument.

When I was growing up, I didn't know of anybody who was trans. There was always, like, this shame, anxiety thing around all of that, even if I wasn't actively expressing it.

I am transgender. I knew that I was for as long as I can remember.

The problem with the spectrum that is trans-ness and where people like Caitlyn Jenner lie, transitioning and being trans is more than a physical thing. Transition is a process.

I look like a dude and feel like a dude, and it sucks. But eventually I'll flip, and I'll present as female.

For my entire life, I've wrestled with my gender identity.

From the moment I could express myself, I acted like a stereotypical girl and insisted that I was a girl. I wasn't just a boy who liked girly things - I knew I was a girl.

It's hard because the phrase 'woman trapped in a man's body' is thrown around a lot, but that's like shorthand. It's deeper than that. There's so much more to it.

Me feeling ambiguous about my gender identity has been a lifelong feeling, certainly.

It's funny. Some people now are like, 'Why would you transition? Why can't you just be comfortable how you were born?' That was my logic, but at a certain point, I realized that I was born uncomfortable.

I think it's really difficult for folks that aren't transgender to really wrap their mind around the feeling of having a gender identity that differs from their sex assigned at birth. But for me, it felt like a constant feeling of homesickness.

When I was very young, I wanted to be a girl. I was jealous that girls got to be princesses and wear skirts. It tormented me. When I was 6, I even heard that you could change your sex, and I was very intrigued until the moment I realized that if I changed into a girl, I would be an ugly girl, and this is the last thing I wanted to be.

That's all true, but there was something else going on for me as a kid, something about my gender identity that I haven't figured out yet. And that's one of the things I'm hoping to dissect and investigate in this memoir project.

For all intents and purposes, I'm a woman.

I thought, transgender people are much worse off than I am. That's why they're willing to risk everything to be who they are. But the older I got, the harder it got to stay in my body.