“Allowing people the freedom to fully self-identify in the ways that are most genuine and true to their lives and experience is the first step toward truly celebrating diversity.”

“It is a frightening time to be transgender or nonbinary in America. It’s a frightening time to love someone who is trans or nonbinary.”

In the third installment of “Ask a Transperson,” YS News columnist Iden Crockett answers: “Are drag shows supposed to be funny? At whose expense?”

In this second entry of News columnist Iden Crockett’s “Ask a Transperson” blog, Crockett answers several questions on her experience with the physical and emotional adjustments related to gender transition, including surgery, hormone replacement therapy, sex and physical intimacy and effects on family members.

This is the inaugural entry of “Ask a Transperson,” a temporary blog by News columnist Iden Crockett intended as a “space dedicated to answering your questions” about what it means to be trans — from Crockett’s perspective. In this entry, Crockett answers: “Can you explain the variations of meaning for the term non-binary?”

“Love is the center point from which we chart all other human emotion. We owe it to each other, and to ourselves, to recapture and appreciate anew the great gift it is to be able to give and receive love.”

The new year is upon us. A time for reflection and, for many of us, resolution. This is the time for getting to work on being our “best selves.”

“It was exhilarating for Iden that first day that I stepped out into the sun. At last, my suffering was over. At last, my pain was behind me. Or so I thought.”

“I have many stories. Every paramedic does. “War stories,” we call them. Some we tell over and over to anyone who hasn’t heard them, and anyone who has.”

“Before he was an artist, before he was a husband, before he was a father or a grandfather, he was a Blues Man.”