Fashion gave me my start, and that will always be my home. I'll always be so grateful for all my collaborators and friends I've made there, but I'm so excited to dive head first into just being a working actor.
— Hari Nef
I don't want the same trans story to be told over and over again. I don't want people to get stuck on this very western idea of what it means to be transgender.
I think people get stuck in a cycle with social media sometimes and don't know how to make adjustments that are personal.
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 get a facial maybe a couple of times a year.
There are no trans roles, and if there are, they go to Jared Leto or Eddie Redmayne or Elle Fanning... Will there ever come a point where I could play a woman in a realistic, naturalistic drama and have there not be the word 'trans' in the script?
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'm really into the way sound works in film, and I did a little bit of sound design for theater in college.
To see a trans body in this ideal space - on a cover, in an ad - these are spaces that have immense cultural power to dictate what is beautiful, what is glamorous, what is aspirational, what is sexy, what is clean. That can be very powerful and helpful in the de-stigmatization of trans bodies.
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.
If my body can fall into the background for just a second, maybe people will start listening to what I have to say.
My identity will always inform my experience and shape my perception. But I am an unremarkable person.
I was romantically socialized as a gay man, and now that I am, for most intents and purposes, a heterosexual woman, I have to learn how to talk to straight men, which is the scariest thing I've ever done.
Whatever surgery someone wants to get is none of your business.
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 travel a lot, so I don't have a morning routine because where I wake up tends to be inconsistent. But I'm always really, really hungry when I wake up, so breakfast is important.
If anyone says that American socialism isn't possible, point them toward the bowling shoe.
If you're going to make a film about rage in 2018, 2017... If you're going to make a film about revenge and anger, I feel like that has to be a film about women. I don't really want to watch a film about angry men. I've seen way too many of those.
What we really need to look at is gender fluidity and the idea that gender can be customised however you want.
There have been moments where I've had to question the way I've used social media and change it. Not because anything was wrong or right but because my needs had changed, and my perspective had changed.
I think the skin is the most important part of a strong makeup look, and if you take care of that, the rest will follow.
Brands like RMS Beauty and Kat Burki are my skincare heroes.
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.
Trans folks are going to rise up for their moments and their money!
I would like to produce, and eventually, I would like to direct.
I feel like the most fascinating parts of a trans life take place after the decision to transition. They take place when you're in this new body, in this new life, and you start realizing things.
I prefer men who are queer. Not gay men, but queer men - guys with an open mind. Bisexual men, because they're able to understand the different elements of the body without judging that I don't conform to a certain ideal.
Visibility is not, in itself, always a good thing, but when it is in the hands of those who need positive visibility, it can be.
I think that often my work is obscured by my gender identity.
My experience with 'Transparent' has completely spoiled me because it was the safest, most transpositive set ever. I didn't have to worry about all the usual things - like when people have a vision of your transness that you're not comfortable with. When they don't know the correct gender pronouns by which to refer to you.
Sexuality is who you want to be with. Gender identity is who you want to be in the world.
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.
My first boyfriend was a fashion designer. He was a junior in high school, I was a freshman.
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 a much better actor as a girl than I was as a guy.
I want to start the trans mafia one day.
I think it's an oversimplification of somebody's worth to 'cancel' them. We're so quick to cancel but also so quick to lift somebody up as 'the queen,' 'the mom,' 'the dad,' 'the god.'
I like to let my skin breathe, I don't like to stress it out. I don't like to put it through very much.
It's time for the aesthetics of upwardly mobile feminist respectability to make room for the aesthetics of survival, particularly trans survival.
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.
I don't feel comfortable with the idea that my only gateway into doing what I love to do is auditioning for other people to give me the green light and say that I'm allowed to do it, or that I'm allowed to play this role, or that I'm allowed to be in this movie. I would feel much more comfortable making those opportunities for myself.
I'm teaching myself how to screenplay write.
I feel like my transition, in a broader sense, began the second I left home and came to New York. Because all of a sudden, I opened myself up to options about how to be.
In an ideal world, I wouldn't have to change my body. I wouldn't have to do all this stuff. I wouldn't have to be pretty or 'feminine,' and people would respect that.
For me, Instagram had become a place where I could image myself the way I found myself.
Being a woman means that my male privilege seeped out of my body.
I used to think I was a gay man with this idea of a muse in my head, like a woman that I thought was inspirational or aspirational. But the woman was actually me.
If you don't know somebody, whether you're inquiring into their sex or their gender, it's invasive.
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.
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.
