(quiet piano music plays)
- When I first heard the news,
I think that there was like,
yeah, there was this
overwhelming happiness.
- Really, kind of, thrilled for her.
- Massive deal.
- I felt like it was a positive
thing in a lot of ways.
- I had a really trans-positive day.
- It's the first time that
we've been given a chance
to change the way that media percieves us.
- Just feeling good about myself
and feeling good about my friends as well.
Her identity was
acknowledged as a legitimate
identity on such a mass scale
that hadn't happened before.
- Those who came out a generation
prior to the Kardashians,
might say it's a massive deal for
young trans-youth in the states.
- Initially, there's that feeling of,
"Well great, here's somebody else who's
finally living true to themselves."
And on some level I think
this is really good for
trans-exposure as well.
But, it's mixed bag in the sense that
here's this white wealthy,
white trans-woman,
who's able to overcome
a lot of the barriers
that are faced by most trans-women.
- So obviously, there's
a huge privilege that
that's not the average
experience for a trans-woman.
- Young trans-people face an
enormous amount of disadvantage
and oppression, and marginalization.
In Melbourne, there is
one hospital, really,
in the entire country that is targeting
and focused toward trans-people,
and they found that more
than half of the kids
who are on that waiting list had either
thought about suicide
or had made an attempt.
- I don't think there's
a single trans-person
that hasn't touched any of those stats.
I'm not gonna lie, I've attempted it
because I didn't think I fit in
and didn't have the support that I needed.
- My daily experience
with being trans is like,
I cop a lot of abuse just
walking down the street.
- When I was growing up,
a trans life wasn't
really considered by me
because the media
representations of trans-people
were just, abhorant.
- Most of these media
coverages deal with poeple
who are in very advanced
stages of their transition
and I think that really
paints a kind of banal picture
of the experiences and
internal and external struggles
that gender varying people have.
- Hopefully, there will be a
little bit more sensitivity
around transphobia.
- I just hope that, maybe if anything,
that the discussion continues
in this unrelenting manner.
- I can only hope that she'll use
her relative power and influence to
talk about these issues
facing most trans-women.
- General greater acceptance
of trans-female identity as real.
- That we should be celebrated
for being in our own bodies.
- Trans-women, we're humans,
just like anyone else
and we should be seen as
individuals and treated as such.
- There's certain
trans-women that don't wanna
change their bodies very much
and they should be celebrated
as beautiful as well.
- It's just that there's
no wrong way to be trans.
Every point of your transition,
your gender identity,
and your expression thereof is still valid
and should be recognized.
