All my life, the naysayers have told me that I can't win because I'm a progressive... because I'm a woman... even because I'm a lesbian.

Cotton is my life.

I don't feel as if anything that has happened to me in my life was sidetracked because I was a woman.

My experience in Iraq made me realize, and during the recovery, that I could have died. And I just had to do more with my life.

When I first ran for Congress in 1998, people counted me out.

I had a serious childhood illness - sort of like spinal meningitis - that led to a three-month hospitalization. Afterward, I couldn't be insured because of a pre-existing condition.