Human behavior is an enormously complex set of things, and that mixture of underlying things is different for different people, so it's not just complex, it's meta-complex.
Passing on a full scholarship to MIT would be irrational for me, but to my father and his parents, what would have been the point of spending five years at one of the world's most prestigious universities if he just ended up back on the farm?
It's important to me that talking about my experience not undermine those who choose differently. There can be a stigma for people who don't take the path I did, as though not having surgery means you're not really transitioning. No one should feel as though it's everything or nothing.
Gender transition isn't about gender. It's about literally making yourself a better person because you know that's a better you.
Looking at where you went to school is a proxy; you assume, because someone went to a good school, therefore they must have the qualities you desire, even though that's not actually really true.
If my son came to me years from now and told me, 'I'm gay,' I'd say, 'That's wonderful. I'm so glad you know who you are.' But if he said, 'I want to be a woman,' I would say, 'Ahhh. This is gonna be hard. Let's get started.' Because it doesn't matter that that's where happiness lies - it's on the other side of a lot of struggle.
If you tell someone, 'Hey, your daughter is going to win a Nobel Prize someday,' it makes it less likely. If you say, 'Your son is in danger of dropping out in the ninth grade,' it could make it more likely.
Discrimination is not done by villains. It's done by us.
Why did I go back to school? After working with giant snails as the manager of an abalone farm, who wouldn't be fascinated with the inner workings of the mind? They are a very contemplative species.
After I transitioned, a lot of people said, 'I like you so much more now,' because before, I was unhappy. Making that change was a big part of becoming me. Whoever you are, as a gay man or a lesbian or a trans woman, embrace it. Turn it into an asset.
The tax on being different is massive.
I'm not enthusiastic about educational games or apps generally.
In 1958, my father graduated from secondary school as the highest-achieving student in the state of Kansas, earning a five-year scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He turned it down. For someone raised in a remote farming town, this would have been his opportunity to transform his life, a ticket to a bigger world.
The tax on being different is largely implicit. People need not act maliciously for it to be levied. In fact, at its heart is a laudable sentiment: 'prove it to me.' The problem is that we are requiring different levels of proof without realising it.