My consciousness is a process, and that includes my relationship with my husband. His being white doesn't make me any less black or invested in black issues, the same way him being a man doesn't make me any less of a feminist.
The idea of growing up in the South and being a man is an interesting thing; there's a lot masculinity involved, with hunting, fishing, and playing sports that rural people take pride in, but at the same time, I grew up really not wanting to hate anybody.
I have had a small handful of truly blatantly discriminatory experiences for being transgender, but the vast majority are simply the differences between being a man versus being a woman in science and business.
I guess I just do being a man different than some.
I realize that homosexuality is a serious problem for anyone who is - but then, of course, heterosexuality is a serious problem for anyone who is, too. And being a man is a serious problem and being a woman is, too. Lots of things are problems.
You act at being a man, and before you know it, you are one.
How sad is that life when a man thinks that his manliness comes with asking sexual favours from a woman. That's the saddest way of being a man.
I still feel like that 17-year-old-kid that fell in love with country music, but I also am allowed to write songs about being a man, too, which I think is the coolest place I've ever been in my life.
Homeboy Industries is a healing center for broken children. I was a broken child, and they showed me how to put all those pieces back together. It's not about being a gangster. It's about being a man or a woman trying to recover and live better.
Our society constantly promotes role models for masculinity, from superheroes to politicians, where the concept of being a 'man' is based in their ability to be tough, dominant - and even violent when required.
I was not popular in school, and I was definitely not a ladies' man. And I had a very painful adolescence, because it was all very strange to me. It wasn't like I got beat up, but the humiliation and isolation, and the existential 'God, I exist, and nobody cares' of being a teenager were extremely pronounced for me.
Something about New York, man: You can do more comedy there probably than you can anywhere in the world. If you're interested in being funny, New York is the place to go.
There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means - either may do - the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.
All the seven deadly sins are man's true nature. To be greedy. To be hateful. To have lust. Of course, you have to control them, but if you're made to feel guilty for being human, then you're going to be trapped in a never-ending sin-and-repent cycle that you can't escape from.
No woman ever hates a man for being in love with her, but many a woman hate a man for being a friend to her.
I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived.
I never wanted to be an actor, and to this day I don't. I can't get a handle on it. An actor wants to become someone else. I am a song-and-dance man, and I enjoy being myself, which is all I can do.
Interestingly, I matured as a musician and as an artist before I matured as a man. What I mean by that is, I was ready to be completely vulnerable and honest with myself and unapologetic when it comes to how I express myself in my medium. But I wasn't as secure in doing that when it came to just being myself.
Certain people are like 'Oh, here come the Feminazis!' You end up acting 10 times nicer than you even need to be, to be the opposite of the stereotype like 'You're the man haters!' We're always bending over backwards being extra nice. And I don't know if being nice is my legacy.
I have a reputation for being pretty much of a wild man.
