Quotes from Sarah McBride

It's OK to be talking to one another about what it means to be transgender. We don't have to shield everyone from the existence of people like me.

Everyone's journey to coming out as transgender is different. For me, I've know that I'm transgender my entire life.

I've always been Sarah. My gender identity has always existed. I've always been a woman. Gay people aren't straight before they come out as gay, and transgender people are who they are before they come out and transition.

I think, for me, with regard to my parents, my biggest fear was not that they would reject me but that I would disappoint them. That by coming out, I would simultaneously dash my own dreams and their dreams for me, and I was afraid of letting them down.

When the work you're doing every single day is so directly about who you are as an individual and who you are as a person, it can be both exhausting and empowering in different moments.

Every single day matters when it comes to building a world where every person can live their life to the fullest.

When the boys and girls would line up separately in kindergarten, I'd find myself longing to be in the other line.

In my view, the best of humanity is in our exercise of empathy and compassion. It's when we challenge ourselves to walk in the shoes of someone whose pain or plight might seem so different than yours that it's almost incomprehensible.

The Trump-Pence administration has truly become one of the most explicitly anti-LGBTQ administrations in history.

Since taking office, Donald Trump and Mike Pence have governed the exact same way they campaigned, which is with bigotry and with bluster, and that includes toward the LGBTQ community.

The reason why access to facilities - and access to public spaces - is so important is because it's much more difficult to go to work, to go to school, to participate in the public marketplace if you can't access bathrooms that make sense for you, that match who you are.

I now know that my dreams and my identity are only mutually exclusive if I don't try.

Trans issues are also environmental issues. They're also healthcare issues. They're also national security issues.

I want to make sure that people understand that, behind this national conversation around transgender rights, there are real people who hurt when they're mocked, who hurt when they're discriminated against, and who just want to be treated with dignity and respect.

While I don't think President Trump is going to round LGBTQ people up, I do think the concerns from the community about his vision are not only understandable but warranted.

I'm so proud to stand with the LGBT Caucus and speak out in support of Hillary Clinton, because we know she stands with us.

Trump's campaign is not a collection of ignorant statements. It is a candidacy of hate and fear that poses serious risks to people of color, women, people with disabilities, immigrants, and LGBTQ people.

There's no question that the best way to get people to care about an issue is to humanize it.

There's no question that the political is personal.

Change always seems impossible until it's inevitable.

For me, having a gender identity that was different from my sex assigned at birth and that wasn't seen by society felt like a constant feeling of homesickness - that unwavering ache in the pit of my stomach.

Being an American is an action; it's an ideal to strive for. It's being part of this constantly perfecting union that, with each generation, expands our scope and human understanding of 'We the people.'

The harassment and the bullying that students face is a learned behavior.

This is how systems of oppression work: The violence, discrimination, and stigma I face as a woman compounds the violence, discrimination, and stigma I face as a trans person, and vice versa.