i'm donna persona and i would like to talk a little bit about the honor i've had in cowriting the play. when i was on the fence, coming from san jose, i wanted to find people that i felt were more like me. so i don't know how i came to this decision that san francisco would be the place to come, but i got on a greyhound bus and i came to san francisco. i couldn't get into bars, i didn't know where they were anyway. i landed on a place, compton's cafeteria. an all-night diner. i would say that is where i first -- i saw these beautiful women and i later learned that they were born as male. but i became friends with them and i learned about their lives. they had decided to match there outside with their insides. they had what i call a courageous nests. by deciding to live the way that they know that they are, they were started by being abandoned by their families. they had no family, and they came to san francisco, and their lives became completely criminalized. they couldn't get jobs. they couldn't go to school. they couldn't get any kind of healthcare. so this play will tell the story o