All right, Laverne take one call mistakes marker
Hi camera
My name is Teddy Quinlivan, I am a fashion model and I’m also a trans rights activist.
I am a journalist, a stand-up comic.
Dog walker
I play Elektra on Pose.
I’m vegan. What else?
Hi, I’m Kenny Jones. I’m 24 years old and I’m a trans man.
It all kind of started when I was 14 – so, I got diagnosed with having gender dysphoria
For a doctor to turn around and say, “we we want to take you down this road of transitioning,” that was such a weight off my shoulders.
Growing up, I was really severely bullied and nobody really understood me
There was no education on being transgender even for me
So I felt this way and I didn't even know how to explain how I felt
Hi, I’m Rebekah Bruesehoff
I am 11 years old.
,I’m a trans girl and I live in New Jersey.
I made a sign that said
"I'm the scary transgender person the media warned you about." It went viral.
It's made me want to make my story heard and
Be a message of hope to others who aren't as lucky as me.
I am meant to be who I am, and I am a girl.
I think I was about 1 and a half when I first brought up that
I felt that I wasn't a boy.
I started verbalizing that I felt like a girl when I was about 4.
I remember being a little and trying to stand up and pee and crying because I couldn't.
Kids that are being born now are being born into a world where trans women appear on the cover of magazines and
front their own shows and a period videos for Vogue and that wasn't the world that I was born into.
A positive thing about being myself in 2018 is that there's more awareness
A positive thing about being myself in 2018 is that there’s more awareness that people like me exist. That doesn’t mean understanding, but at least I’m not an entirely alien concept.
A positive thing about being me is… I survived.
I have come to
A place where I can be
Honest about being friends.
I have the language to
Express who I am as a person and to
feel empowered that there's nothing wrong with me, that I am who I am and
Who I am is valid.
I was part of the Vogue power list, you know, the 25 women shaping the world. This was huge.
Recognition both on the personal side, but also on the professional side
you know, with the creation of our skincare line, Orveda.
So this is, for me, the big news of 2018, and it’s very strong that a magazine like Vogue has recognised
My story my achievements.
One positive thing about being me in 2018 will be
To not give a damn of what people think.
My name is Laverne Cox
Well, first of all
I don't like to deal in positive or negative because that's a binary and I think we should be moving beyond binaries.
So I would rephrase that question and say one of the affirming things about being me in
2018 is that I get to be me. I mean, I'm Laverne Cox
I’m Eden Loweth, and I identify as non-binary, and I’m the designer for Art School.
So when it comes to the non-binary community
I think it can be really confusing because we get
Socialized believing that there's male and female and with that there's masculine and feminine
So non-binary can include people that feel like
some of a bit male and a bit female, they can feel nothing, they can feel all of it, it can change.
It’s kind of just saying that like
There is more than male or female. So for me as a non-binary person,
I just feel more relaxed when people don't try and gender me at all.
One of the things that happens a lot when it comes to engaging with the
Non-binary and trans community is how do we talk to each other? What should the introductions look like?
and I know that there's always a lot of fear about saying the wrong thing and I always say to people
“Don’t worry about saying the wrong thing, because you most assuredly already have.”
To always check all people for their pronouns
I know it's sometimes uncomfortable thing to do and you might think it's a little bit unnecessary
But you're just
Essentially making sure you that you don't offend anyone. My dad always says, “oh, I don’t know what’s the right words to say,” but I just say it doesn't matter
If you think you're saying the wrong thing as long as your heart's in the right place that you just support people
That's the most important thing.
My name is Alok and I use they-them pronouns.
One negative thing about being me in 2018,
Is that violence against people like me is escalating. What this looks like
it's a whole host of things but
Oftentimes it's people staring at me, taking photos without my consent, pushing me telling me that I shouldn't exist.
This also continues online whenever I post a photo of myself people tell me that I'm an abomination.
That me and my partner disgusting,
I've had to come off a lot of social media because of the anti trans backlash
In order to protect my mental health.
Being trans in South Wales is quite difficult because I struggle with anxiety issues. So,
I don't really go out that much and there's not really that many safe spaces in
Newport or Cardiff when I used to live in Brighton there was a lot more gender-neutral toilets
Which I found a lot more comfortable.
When folks are like, you know, “we don’t want transgender women going to the women’s room,”
They’re really talking about, “we don’t want trans people to exist,” and I feel like there's been throughout my life
Efforts to erase me and erase me and and what I mean by that is erase my womanhood. In the face of all kinds of
policies that try to erase us, in the face of murders, trans people persist.
We exist and we will never be erased. We cannot be erased
Eradicated dismissed or invalidated. We aren't going anywhere and it's incredible.
I was honored to be asked to be here today because among all these trans and
GNC people
This content is much-needed and right now
Representation is needed
If I could say one thing to the British Vogue
viewers and readers and everyone who's watching this I would just like to say, thank you. Pass it along share it with people
This will hopefully amplify our voice, so everyone can hear us and we'll keep screaming
We won't be erased.