“I’m talking about the trans woman of color journey. I’d never seen a book like that, so that’s why I wrote it. I wanted to tell the real story of a North Carolinian child all the way up to the present day of what it took for me to get here, to tell the story of what it’s like to be transgender and what it’s like to feel like there’s no one there else but the girls around you as your family. I wrote the book to educate and enlighten people about what it is to be a trans woman of color, to show people there are transgender people who have made it...I don’t normally agree with the mainstream. First of all I’m not white, I am educated and but I am a black educated trans woman. While the LGBT movement is fighting a cause, I have to look out for the women on the street. I feel they are not getting the respect they deserve" -Toni Newman, author of the important memoir "I Rise" . . . #toninewman #irise #memoir #translivesmatter #blacktranslivesmatter #growingupqueer #transstories #transwomeninfilm #herstory #caldocumentary #callingalllesbians (at San Francisco, California)