Quotes from Hari Nef

When people ask me what I do, I tell them that I 'do things in front of people.' I don't know why I do what I do. I've tried working behind the scenes. I felt left out!

I'm teaching myself how to screenplay write.

Dysphoria will always be a painful place.

Leaving the house in a pair of flip-flops in Manhattan is disgusting to me, no shade.

I could have hidden in Boston and lived at home for three years, gone through my transition, taken voice lessons to make my voice more feminine, gotten gender reassignment surgery, and spent time to complete my transition, but I didn't want to wait. I wanted to be in the world.

My identity will always inform my experience and shape my perception. But I am an unremarkable person.

A pink sneaker is like walking down the street at five miles per hour with a Starbucks in your hand. Nobody is getting in your way.

Trans-dating is hardcore, and it's really scary. And that's coming from me, someone who couldn't be dating in a more open-minded Manhattan pool of artsy boys and creative folk. Not saying it all sucks. I'm just saying it's not easy.

I keep a very cold apartment - I tend to crank my AC just about as low as it can go. I sleep with a big, warm comforter, even during the summer, and just burrow underneath it.

People make fun of me because I've been known to eat lunch things for breakfast. I'll eat a good salad. I'll maybe have some tempeh or kale in there. I try to make breakfast a lavish meal because, one, my body tells me to, and, two, that's what carries me through the day.

Whatever surgery someone wants to get is none of your business.

I liked playing video games because I felt like I was inside of the story in a way that I didn't feel when I was just watching something. Any chance I could get to step into the shoes of another person, I would take. I couldn't get enough of stories.

I feel like so much of mainstream feminism springs from the second wave, which was essentially a discourse spearheaded by white, cisgender, upper middle class women. I feel - especially as I'm trying to negotiate this new female space with the feminism that's available to me - there are a lot of places where I'm disenfranchised.

It's time for the aesthetics of upwardly mobile feminist respectability to make room for the aesthetics of survival, particularly trans survival.

Fragrance is important to me because of its emotional dimension. I feel like fragrances are able to transport, stir emotion, and bring up memories. You can wear makeup, you can dress yourself up, but fragrance gives a powerful aspect to how you can present yourself that you can't necessarily get any other way.

I'm very conscious and weary of the hype economy and the way people build things up just to tear them down.

If I get too glam and polished and pretty, people are like, 'Hari, why aren't you speaking up about issues?' And if I start speaking up about issues, people are like, 'Why can't you just be an actress?'

When I saw that Laverne Cox was on the cover of 'Time' magazine, I totally lost it. It was a coup for the girls!

I see a Reiki healer from time to time. She sits on my bed, and I lie in her lap. She puts her hands on me for about 45 minutes, and she reads my energy. Whenever I'm having a hard time, I call her. I also go to weekly therapy, and that has been invaluable. Also, getting on medication for my 'neural atypicalities,' I guess we might call them.

Fashion gave me the platform that has made this transition from fashion to Hollywood, from East Coast to West Coast. Fashion gave me the platform that has made this easier than it is for a lot of other people. And I will always count fashion as the industry that was first to welcome me and embrace what I could do.

My desire to be an actor or a model precedes my identity.

I don't want to say that women who do use makeup or get breast implants or have fake nails are insecure. They're entitled to that, and they should do that if that's what they want to do. But for me, there are no answers. It's just a matter of preference and choice and fetish.

There's something very noble about the bowling shoe. It has very little pretense, and it's kind of naughty. You have to share them with a bunch of other people, which is so kinky in a way that I like. What other shoes would you actively share with other people?

I'm grateful to be in school developing my practice as an actor. In that process, it's difficult to say that you've definitively 'learned' something.