Do not ghettoize society by putting people into legal categories of gender race ethnicity language or other such characteristics.

My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

For me Barack Obama's election was a milestone of the most extraordinary kind. On the day he was elected I felt such hope in my heart. I thought we were seeing the beginning of a new era of equal opportunity across race and gender such as America had never known before.

But let me tell you this gender thing is history. You're looking at a guy who sat down with Margaret Thatcher across the table and talked about serious issues.

When the Nobel award came my way it also gave me an opportunity to do something immediate and practical about my old obsessions including literacy basic health care and gender equity aimed specifically at India and Bangladesh.

I want to state upfront unequivocally and without doubt: I do not believe that any racial ethnic or gender group has an advantage in sound judging. I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge regardless of their background or life experiences.

Every American deserves to live in freedom to have his or her privacy respected and a chance to go as far as their ability and effort will take them - regardless of race gender ethnicity or economic circumstances.

A lot of parents never speak to their transgender kids again that's not the case in my family.

As long as the G.O.P. led by its increasingly visible women continues to insist that the problem is not their policies but women's failure to understand their own lives and interests the gender gap won't go away.

I don't think people should have boundaries put on them by themselves or society or another gender because it's our birthright to experience life in whatever way we feel best suits us.