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HBO has long been at the forefront of LGBTQ advocacy, with a history of programming that includes And the Band Played On, Angels in America, The Laramie Project, and more. In 2013, they produced The Out List, an hourlong series of testimonials from out gay people of varying levels of fame: entertainers like Ellen Degeneres and Neil Patrick Harris; politicians and activists like Christine Quinn and Larry Kramer. One of the speakers was Janet Mock, writer and transgender activist, who spoke openly and eloquently about her experience as a trans woman.

Three years later, HBO is back with The Trans List, from Out List director Timothy Greenfield-Sanders, and featuring Janet Mock as the introductory voice welcoming the audience to the project. (Mock also conducted the interviews with the eleven other trans people in the special.) Like with The Out List, the chief virtue of The Trans List is that it gives each speaker the time and attention to tell their own story in their own words. Often, particularly with transgender issues, the focus ends up falling on the cisgender people who have to learn. Certainly in a dramatized, narrative version of things, cisgender people (whether opponents or advocates) would at least merit equal time. But The Trans List isn’t about equal time or politics or even advocacy; it’s about identity. It’s about giving these dozen voices the time and the space to tell their stories, and no matter how stagy and modest the craft is on display here, the audacity of those stories is paramount and makes The Trans List a must-watch.

The testimonials in The Trans List touch in a wide variety of experiences. Buck Angel gets emotional talking about finding freedom in the porn industry. Miss Major Griffin-Gracy takes us back to Stonewall and how the gay rights movement that took off from that moment didn’t end up lifting the “T” part of LGBT in the same way it lifted up the others. Nicole Maines talks about the hott-button bathroom issue but also growing up with a cisgender twin who served as kind of a mirror of “normalcy” her whole life. Alok-Vaid Menon talks gender non-conformity in all its myriad beauty and possibility, but also about India’s colonial history of trans people being silenced and legislated into silence. Caitlyn Jenner, yes, is there to talk about her experience, and while it’s the story we’ve heard her tell Diane Sawyer and Bill Simmons and others before, it’s important to see Caitlyn’s experience within the context of her trans brethren here. And there is Laverne Cox, whose story is so triumphant, but whose ascent also touches on her time with the drag community.

The intersectionality of the LGBTQ community is a many-sided die that gets tossed and re-tossed on a daily basis. The nature of pushing the boundaries for these communities is that there often isn’t one community voice. The monologues of The Trans List are vital and illuminating; they also brush up against issues of conflict and confusion. I wonder if there might be the possibility of a follow-up where the monologues become dialogues within the community. Maybe that’s next. For now, The Trans List has the sense to know that you’ll never get the story as vibrantly, as empathetically, or as authentically as you will from the source. These trans voices are twelve among MANY, but their voices get to be heard, and that matters.

The Trans List premieres tonight on HBO and will be available on HBO GO and HBO NOW starting tomorrow.