Trans people are not a monolith.

We exist in a culture where trans people are constantly delegitimized.

I learned to hide aspects of my personality. Playing with girls was fine, for example, but playing with their Barbies was something I could do only behind closed doors.

I'm an island girl, so I love super bronzy skin!

I would advise any 17-year-old to surround yourself with people who listen to you, nod when you speak, and smile when you enter spaces.

I think millennials are the most woke generation because they understand that differences are just in the fabric of who we are.

I was a mixed black girl existing in a westernized Hawaiian culture where petite Asian women were the ideal, in a white culture where black women were furthest from the standard of beauty, in an American culture where trans women of color were invisible.

I hope being honest about my experiences and contextualizing them empowers young women to step into their truths, tell their own stories, and live visibly.

When I was younger, I wish I would have been told more often that I was right and nothing was wrong with me, that I was deserving of everything this world has to offer, and that my visions for my future were worthy of pursuit.

Femininity in general is seen as frivolous. People often say feminine people are doing 'the most,' meaning that to don a dress, heels, lipstick and big hair is artifice, fake, and a distraction. But I knew even as a teenager that my femininity was more than just adornments: they were extensions of me, enabling me to express myself and my identity.

We must have the audacity to turn up the frequency of our truths.

For so much of my life, I lived feeling as if, if I spoke, if I said something, I would lose everything. I would be pushed out. No one will want me. No one will love me. No one would want to be friends with me. It took me decades to get to a space of saying, 'This is my truth. This is who I am, and I don't care if you like me or you don't like me.'

We are all part of a larger collective looking to create a more beautiful and just world.

When I was a high school freshman in Honolulu, I would sit with my girlfriends on the bleachers of the school amphitheater every morning. We'd meet in the same spot and chat for an hour before homeroom began.

When you hear anyone policing the bodies of trans women, misgendering and othering us, and violently exiling us from spaces, you should not dismiss it as a trans issue that trans women should speak out against. You should be engaged in the dialogue, discourse, and activism that challenges the very fibers of your movement.

I don't feel as if I'm typecast - like any writer, the difficulty is that one facet of my identity becomes louder, obscuring the fact that I'm also a woman, a writer, a lover of pop culture and other things.

If anyone can be said to embody the American Dream, it's Kim Kardashian West.

Our differences are what make us great. Let us think about how we can extend this appreciation to people of color, undocumented immigrants, and other members of the community.

Great conversations always spark in a genuine interest to recognize and know the other person's story and, therefore, recognizing and understanding and celebrating their humanity.

Media gatekeepers - editors, publishers, film studios and the like - need to begin investing in talent behind the scenes, developing and resourcing marginalized voices to tell their own stories. At the end of the day, it's about the story and what will enable the audience to truly see, understand, and know the life and times of the subject.

I don't chase beauty trends.

Popular culture is most powerful when it offers us a vision of how our society should look - or at least reproduces our reality.

My personal style really started in my teens when I gained purchasing power to actually buy my own damn clothes. For so long, my parents dictated what I wore, which largely was their way of containing me within the gender binary.

I just love to glow, glow glow, so with my skincare and makeup routine, I gravitate to products that help me achieve that sun-kissed, dewy look.