Quotes from Nicole Maines

Separate but equal does not work.

When we have a trans woman playing a trans woman, then you see, 'Oh wait, this is what trans really is. This is what it looks like: a person.' That sends a message to trans kids that they are valid in their identities that they are allowed to exist.

It's OK not to understand the whole trans thing. That's alright. My dad didn't understand it. I still don't know everything. What's important is you sort of educate yourself on your own time, but you have to respect it on everyone else's time. Because no one should have to wait for equality.

I did a guest episode of 'Royal Pains,' and then right after that, 'Supergirl' happened, and I was like, 'How did I get here?' Every day, I walk on set, and I'm waiting for someone to be like, 'Ma'am, you can't be here.'

It seems only fitting that we have a trans superhero for trans kids to look up to. I wish there was a trans superhero when I was little.

Everybody loves superheroes, and so to be associated with a superhero forever is just kind of like, that's where the goalposts are. That's kind of, 'Bam, you're immortalized!'

Kids and just young people in general are usually a lot more, I guess, open-minded to change. Especially when you're really little in elementary school, you don't expect a lot of things from people, so if somebody says, 'I'm switching genders,' you're just sort of like, 'OK, that's new. But cool.'

I'm so glad that all the work that my family and I are doing is yielding positive results and making actual change!

The thought of being a boy makes me cringe. I just couldn't do it.

When I was first trying to explain to my parents that I was really a girl, my father didn't know what to do. He had these preconceived notions about what his family was going to be like, and when I didn't fit into those notions, he just ignored what I was trying to tell them before he really came around.

I think accurately presenting a trans character means not presenting them as perfect - I think there's been a pressure to do this with trans characters. They can have no flaws because they must represent the entire trans community.

What I'm really excited for is to see the evolution of trans characters and see more diverse stories be told, so that every time we're on screen, we're not really playing the part of educator and having to explain the experience to the audience, because it will have already been normalized.

I think, for all trans people, it's not our only defining feature, but it is a defining feature.

We can be whoever we want. We can do whatever we want. We can be superheroes, because in many ways we are. We've had trans representation in television for a while, but it hasn't been the right representation.

I had been on puberty suppressants and hormone suppressants, so I did not go through male puberty.

With trans folks, we have a lot of people accusing us of just playing dress up for whatever reasons, and that's just not true.

It's good to have a free space to laugh and cry and get angry about gender and sexuality. That's one of the things I am the most thankful for from my friends and my family. They've given me the place to freely have gender be a part of our discourse.

Gender is something that occurs in the mind, and sex is something that occurs, you know, everywhere else on the body. And whether or not those two things happen to align - well, if they do, great. If they don't, also great.

My acting and activism go hand-in-hand, and they really support one another.

Now that we've seen broader representation of trans identities, I think it's safer to explore the fault in these trans characters and make them entirely human and three dimensional.

I think it is necessary to educate folks on trans issues and to make them aware of trans identities and normalise it, because it is normal. But when you're shielded from something, and it's actively censored, it takes a negative connotation.

I am transgender. I knew that I was for as long as I can remember.

This entire issue of transgender people posing a kind of threat to cisgender women in bathrooms is made up. We are just like everybody else - we go into the bathroom, we keep our heads down, we don't look at anybody.

Cisgender actors don't take trans roles out of malice. I think it's just failure to realize the context behind having cisgender people play transgender characters because we don't see the same issue with sexuality.