{ "id": "p16022coll97:97", "object": "https://cdm16022.contentdm.oclc.org/utils/getthumbnail/collection/p16022coll97/id/97", "set_spec": "p16022coll97", "collection_name": "Tretter Transgender Oral History Project", "collection_name_s": "Tretter Transgender Oral History Project", "collection_description": "
The Tretter Transgender Oral History Project (TTOHP) collects, preserves, and makes accessible oral histories of gender transgression, especially as theyintersect with race, age, sexuality, citizenship, class, and ability. The project seeks to document the power and vision of trans movements for justice through the stories of activists working to imagine another world.
\n\nThe first phase of the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project was led by poet and activist Andrea Jenkins—who became the first Black transgender woman to serve in office in the US after she was elected, in 2017, to the Minneapolis City Council. This phase of the project sought to document the life stories and experiences of transgender and gender non-conforming people, with a focus on people living in the upper Midwest as well as those often excluded from the historical record, including trans people of color and trans elders.
\n\nThe second phase of the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project is led by trans studies scholar Myrl Beam. This phase of work seeks to document histories of trans activist movements and politics in the US, and is grounded in the belief that trans movements for justice are about more than rights: they are about survival, and about creating a new, more fabulous, more livable, and more expansive world––one not structured by racialized gender norms. The oral histories collected during this phase document the transformative power of trans movements, and the stories of trans activists who are building them.
\n\nFor more about the project, visit: https://www.lib.umn.edu/tretter/transgender-oral-history-project.
", "title": "Interview with Freya Richman", "title_s": "Interview with Freya Richman", "title_t": "Interview with Freya Richman", "title_search": "Interview with Freya Richman", "title_sort": "interviewwithfreyarichman", "description": "Freya Richman is a Jewish trans woman from Appleton, Wisconsin. She became involved with 20 Percent Theater and their show The Naked I, which she was able to use as a platform to tell her story. She discusses what it is like to come out as trans later in life, and the impact that had on her relationships. She talks about workplace discrimination, as well as the difference in the way people who knew her before treat her compared to those who only know her after transitioning.", "date_created": [ "2017-11-02" ], "date_created_ss": [ "2017-11-02" ], "date_created_sort": "2017", "creator": [ "Richman, Freya" ], "creator_ss": [ "Richman, Freya" ], "creator_sort": "richmanfreya", "contributor": [ "Jenkins, Andrea (Interviewer)" ], "contributor_ss": [ "Jenkins, Andrea (Interviewer)" ], "notes": "Forms part of the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project, Phase 1.", "types": [ "Moving Image" ], "format": [ "Oral histories | http://vocab.getty.edu/aat/300202595" ], "format_name": [ "Oral histories" ], "dimensions": "1:00:32", "subject": [ "Midwest (United States)", "Art and Creative Work", "Coming Out", "Sex and Love", "Family Relationships", "Work", "Gender Affirming Care", "Discrimination", "Tretter Transgender Oral History Project Phase 1" ], "subject_ss": [ "Midwest (United States)", "Art and Creative Work", "Coming Out", "Sex and Love", "Family Relationships", "Work", "Gender Affirming Care", "Discrimination", "Tretter Transgender Oral History Project Phase 1" ], "language": [ "English" ], "city": [ "Minneapolis" ], "state": [ "Minnesota" ], "country": [ "United States" ], "continent": [ "North America" ], "geonames": [ "http://sws.geonames.org/5037657/" ], "parent_collection": "Tretter Transgender Oral History Project", "parent_collection_name": "Tretter Transgender Oral History Project", "contributing_organization": "University of Minnesota Libraries, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies.", "contributing_organization_name": "University of Minnesota Libraries, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies.", "contributing_organization_name_s": "University of Minnesota Libraries, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies.", "contact_information": "University of Minnesota Libraries, Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies. 111 Elmer L. Andersen Library, 222 - 21st Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455; https://www.lib.umn.edu/tretter", "fiscal_sponsor": "This project is funded through the generous support of The TAWANI Foundation, Headwaters Foundation and many individual donors.", "local_identifier": [ "tretter414_tohp137" ], "dls_identifier": [ "tretter414_tohp137" ], "rights_statement_uri": "http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-EDU/1.0/", "kaltura_video": "1_qezktnhs", "page_count": 0, "record_type": "primary", "first_viewer_type": "kaltura_video", "viewer_type": "kaltura_video", "attachment": "157.pdf", "attachment_format": "pdf", "document_type": "item", "featured_collection_order": 999, "date_added": "2018-09-24T00:00:00Z", "date_added_sort": "2018-09-24T00:00:00Z", "date_modified": "2020-05-22T00:00:00Z", "transcription": "Freya Richman 1\nFreya Richman\nNarrator\nAndrea Jenkins\nInterviewer\nThe Transgender Oral History Project\nTretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nNovember 2, 2017\nThe Transgender Oral History Project of the Upper Midwest will empower individuals to tell their story,\nwhile providing students, historians, and the public with a more rich foundation of primary source\nmaterial about the transgender community. The project is part of the Tretter Collection at the\nUniversity of Minnesota. The archive provides a record of GLBT thought, knowledge and culture for\ncurrent and future generations and is available to students, researchers and members of the public.\nThe Transgender Oral History Project will collect up to 400 hours of oral histories involving 200 to 300\nindividuals over the next three years. Major efforts will be the recruitment of individuals of all ages and\nexperiences, and documenting the work of The Program in Human Sexuality. This project will be led by\nAndrea Jenkins, poet, writer, and trans-activist. Andrea brings years of experience working in\ngovernment, non-profits and LGBT organizations. If you are interested in being involved in this exciting\nproject, please contact Andrea.\nAndrea Jenkins\njenki120@umn.edu\n(612) 625-4379\nFreya Richman 3\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\n1 Andrea Jenkins -AJ\n2 Freya Richman -FR\n3\n4 AJ: So, hello.\n5 FR: Hello.\n6 AJ: My name is Andrea Jenkins and I am the oral historian for the Transgender Oral History Project\n7 at the University of Minnesota, the Tretter Collection in LGBT Studies. Today is November 2,\n8 2017, and I am in south Minneapolis, and I am here today with Freya Richman. Hello, Freya.\n9 FR: Hello, thank you for having me. It’s nice to be here.\n10 AJ: How are you?\n11 FR: I’m good.\n12 AJ: Yeah, very good. So, Freya, just to make sure that we have all the information correctly, can you\n13 state your name, spell your name, your gender identity as you define it today, and your gender\n14 assigned at birth, and your pronouns?\n15 FR: I’m Freya Richman, spelled F-r-e-y-a; my last name is R-i-c-h-m-a-n. I was assigned male at birth\n16 and I identify as female or, I would say, femme. Yeah, either of those.\n17 AJ: OK.\n18 FR: What else did you want to know?\n19 AJ: Your pronouns?\n20 FR: Oh, my pronouns. She/her/hers are my pronouns.\n21 AJ: Awesome. So, I generally start with . . . you know, as a way to get people’s memories going,\n22 asking people just to recall the first thing that they remember in life?\n23 FR: The first thing I remember in life, I suppose, my bedroom when I was a child. I have early\n24 memories of that and of my mother comforting me as a child.\n25 AJ: Where did you grow up?\n26 FR: I grew up in Appleton, Wisconsin.\n27 AJ: Is that right?\n28 FR: My father was a professor at Lawrence University. Yeah, that’s a small city in the northeastern\n29 part of Wisconsin, about 60,000 people.\n30 AJ: OK, so pretty small town.\n31 FR: Yeah. Because of Lawrence University, it was a small town . . . a small city with some cultural\n32 connections. Not as small as they come, by a long stretch.\nFreya Richman 4\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nAJ: No, it’s average . . . I don’t know. Wisconsin has a lot of small towns, some 1 much, much smaller\n2 than 60,000 people. So, you define it as a city?\n3 FR: Yeah, for sure.\n4 AJ: OK, very good. What did your dad teach?\n5 FR: My father taught biology.\n6 AJ: Did your mom work outside of the house?\n7 FR: Not very much. She studied home economics in college and for a while she was a school\n8 teacher. She started a nursery school, actually, in Appleton, Wisconsin. But, no, she mostly was\n9 a homemaker and active in our synagogue, she was a volunteer for many organizations in town.\n10 AJ: So, you identify as Jewish?\n11 FR: Oh, yeah, I’m Jewish.\n12 AJ: And did you have siblings at all?\n13 FR: Yes. I’m the youngest of three. My brother is seven years older than me and my sister is 10\n14 years older than me.\n15 AJ: Hmm, cool. So, Freya, how does your family deal with your gender identity today?\n16 FR: Well, you know, my family has learned to . . . my family has been very accepting.\n17 AJ: Great, that’s awesome.\n18 FR: They’ve . . . pretty much, I’ve given them no choice, in a way, but to accept me as I am. I’ve\n19 always been a little bit of . . . what? A bold personality in my family, so I don’t think that it was,\n20 in a way, too surprising to get a curve ball from Freya at a certain point. So, my family has been\n21 very accepting. I’m lucky, I know a lot of people encounter a lot of resistance from their family.\n22 But, for me, I think it was really just kind of normal growing pains. My family was quick to adopt\n23 my name and my pronouns. I had a few moments where I had to school my father, in particular,\n24 but my father is in his late 80s and he refers to me as his daughter when he introduces me.\n25 AJ: Wow, that’s beautiful.\n26 FR: I’ve had very little problems with my family, as far as that goes. I did not transition until pretty\n27 late. I was in my late 40s when I started to transition and I think . . . I really did not know what\n28 was happening. I don’t think I was really aware of queer culture when I started to transition,\n29 and then I discovered it along the way and it was all a huge revelation for me to start to build\n30 some queer community around me. But, at first, I was just kind of reacting to my own impulses,\n31 coping with them in a way, and seeing them through somehow to their logical conclusions. I\n32 think, at first, I thought I was maybe a crossdresser. I went through a little bit of an evolution in\n33 my transition.\n34 AJ: How many labels would you say that you’ve used to describe yourself over time?\nFreya Richman 5\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nFR: Well, at least a couple. I was, for sure, a crossdresser for a while. I don’t 1 think I really\n2 understood that there was the option of transition. It’s funny to think about. For a while, I\n3 guess, I felt like . . . looking back, I think I approached incorporating feminine things into my\n4 routine kind of secretly, and, from the point of view of a man. To wear panties under your\n5 trousers is a certain kind of thing for a man that’s obviously very different than it is when you\n6 have finally come around to identifying not at all as a man who is experimenting with something\n7 . . . finding it titillating, but different from reacting to that as female. That took a certain amount\n8 of time. For a while I did not think that I would transition medically, but after a certain length of\n9 time, I think I came to the realization that I wasn’t just trying on feminine things, that there was\n10 something deeper for me than that. And, I remember . . . and I know this is somewhere in our\n11 notes today, about organizations – things where you’ve come to find connections with\n12 organizations, and for me it was really 20 Percent Theater in town, a theater that is devoted to\n13 amplifying the voices of queer and trans and gender non-conforming people. I had a friend who\n14 was in one of The Naked I productions and he let his community know about it and I went . . . I\n15 looked into what this was. I think this was only the first new The Naked I. The Naked I was\n16 originally a play that Tobias K. Davis penned and 20 Percent Theatre produced it as such, and\n17 then later on they began to create new productions based on that, a compendium of scenes and\n18 stories and spoken word, short scenes. I believe this piece that I saw was the first new new\n19 production after that original one. When I found out what it was, I knew I had to see it and I\n20 invited my spouse to come with me. This was a little before I had really, sort of, begun to show\n21 outward signs of transition. I thought maybe this would be an opportunity to start a\n22 conversation. I knew that something resonated with me about the kinds of stories that I was\n23 seeing in that production. And then, two years after that, I made it a point to audition for the\n24 next version, that was the version that you and I were in together. And, I played a part, I looked\n25 at those sides in the auditions and I could see that there was this role that felt like me. I\n26 basically went into that audition holding up this side and saying, “Excuse me, this person in this\n27 scene, I think that’s me. I would really like to portray this person because it feels like my\n28 experience.” They were willing to agree to that, they were willing to say, “OK, you be that\n29 person.” That was the first time that I sat in a circle at the beginning of this process for that\n30 production and had the opportunity, right there, to redefine my pronouns. That was the first\n31 time I’d been in a circle where we were saying our name and our pronouns, I’d never\n32 experienced that before. At the time, I wasn’t ready to declare new pronouns but I sure liked\n33 the idea of it. By two years after that, I think that was . . . what I’m just talking about, that\n34 production was Insides Out, I think that was the subtitle name: The Naked I: Insides Out. And\n35 then, two years after that, was Self-Defined, I think was the subtitle: The Naked I: Self-Defined.\n36 That production, I participated in as a writer and a performer because I was able to tell my own\n37 story by then, two years later. During that production, my name became legal, my gender\n38 pronoun became legal, and that was a real watershed for me. And that piece was called Sailing\n39 Upwind, in which I drew an analogy between sailing, which I did a lot with my father when I was\n40 young – we had a small sailboat and we’d sail around on Lake Winnebago near where I lived. I\n41 drew an analogy between becoming yourself, evolving as a person, and the process of sailing\n42 upwind. It’s easy to sail with the wind, but sailing upwind requires a certain kind of process\n43 because a sailboat can’t sail straight into the wind. If you want to gain your course upwind, you\n44 have to cross the wind and go back and forth, it’s called tacking. You have to make these\nFreya Richman 6\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\noblique crosses back and forth, and so it’s an incremental process and you 1 take these oblique\n2 sort of tacks, you can’t do directly towards your goal. I think that is a great analogy for how my\n3 life has evolved in the past . . . say five years, as I discovered who I was. I think that, for me, a lot\n4 of these changes felt very gradual, very incremental. But, for some of the people in my life, my\n5 family, these changes seemed much more abrupt than that. Because, for me, this was\n6 happening inside and I would make little outward manifestations, things that I wore and so on,\n7 but I think a lot of what was happening, for me, which felt really risky, really out there, sort of\n8 slipped by under the radar. People didn’t really necessarily notice until it had already sort of\n9 progressed, in a way, to a certain kind of stage and then people suddenly felt like some of this\n10 was coming from out of the blue. We had some rocky times, my spouse and me. By the time\n11 this was happening for me, my children were already 14 and 12. I have a boy and a girl. That\n12 was tricky to navigate. Yeah, in my early days of transition, I spent a lot of time in my bathroom\n13 with the door locked looking at myself in the mirror in various outfits and wondering about\n14 them, thinking that some t-shirt with a little feminine . . . like a little feminine detail, like this, or\n15 some little shoulder that had some little gathers, a little puff sleeve – put it on and look in the\n16 mirror and thinking, “Holy crap, this is radical. If I go into the main part of the house wearing\n17 this, people are going to really . . . they’re going to freak out.”\n18 AJ: Right.\n19 FR: For a while, some of my community knew a little bit about what was happening for me, but I\n20 kept it from my family. I’d put clothes in a gym bag and end up at a coffee shop around the\n21 corner from my house and I would change clothes, like Super Woman in the phone booth. I’d go\n22 in and I’d come out in just simple femme clothing and it felt really dangerous and really risky and\n23 hugely exhilarating. I say in Sailing Upwind that it’s so not about the clothes, but I think the\n24 outward manifestations are where a lot of us kind of begin.\n25 AJ: I think that’s a true statement. You mentioned that you invited your spouse to the first\n26 production of The Naked I. How did that interaction go and did it accomplish what you hoped it\n27 would?\n28 FR: Well, it was really just the . . . it was really just like putting a seed in soil. There was no way . . .\n29 as far as planting a seed, it went exactly the way I had hoped, but I couldn’t tell really. It was\n30 way too soon to tell what that was going to be. We’re . . . well, I’m from a Jewish family, not\n31 adverse to conflict. Karen is from a Lutheran family, very averse to conflict – everyone is happy\n32 all the time. So, I think we largely avoid direct communication about it, as we did . . . plus, I’m\n33 sort of the Jewish, in your face kind of communication is sort of tempered with me by my\n34 Scorpio-ness, which is prone to become secretive about things. So, for a while, we did not\n35 address things very head on. Eventually, we had to begin to open up more of a dialogue and\n36 there was a lot of conflict. There were at least a couple of New Year’s Eves that were really\n37 miserable. We never made it out of the house because we were having a conflict over what I\n38 was wearing.\n39 AJ: You wanted to dress . . .in femme?\n40 FR: Yeah, I wanted to dress all femme. I said in . . . it’s a line from Sailing Upwind that I refer to a\n41 lot, “There’s just no gradual change from pants to skirt. You can . . .” It’s talking about clothing\nFreya Richman 7\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nagain, but your neck line can go lower and you can have more of a scoop 1 neck or pleats or\n2 gathers, tighter jeans, crops, things like that, but to go to a skirt or a dress is a huge kind of step\n3 and, for a while, especially at my . . . if we were going to my mother-in-law’s house, it was a\n4 thing, we would get into a thing. She would ask me, “Just wear pants, anything with two legs\n5 will be fine.” And we had some conflict about this. I have encountered some . . . I have\n6 encountered some negative reaction from family, it’s not from my side of the family.\n7 Conservative, religious, suburban kind of reaction because I was . . . you would think that they\n8 would, in a way, come . . . they might have chalked it up to Freya and her artiness, because I was\n9 always, at least for them, kind of out there. “A theatre artist, what would you expect. Freya\n10 would show up wearing a . . .” They thought I was in drag, which, much later, I had to explain\n11 that this . . . that I was not in drag. But, you know, they thought that I was . . . and they would\n12 make the excuse that their children were uncomfortable and that’s not really what it was. So,\n13 sadly, there’s some relationships that have been, for a number of years, lost. But, everybody\n14 knows who is Freya. I expect that eventually these things will calm down.\n15 AJ: Are you still partnered or married?\n16 FR: Yeah, which is another interesting thing about my story is that . . . yeah, my spouse has\n17 managed to understand a certain kind of continuity about me. I think that’s some of what I had\n18 written about here in my little notebook.\n19 AJ: Feel free to share it, if you want.\n20 FR: I will. There’s a question for, I think . . . for me, for trans people, maybe, in general, just about\n21 nature versus nurture. What do you talk about . . . how far back do you go? Does that make\n22 sense? How far back do you go? Have I always been Freya somewhere in me? I would say, yes.\n23 But, in some ways, I didn’t know it. I didn’t know it until much later in life. There’s another line\n24 from Sailing Upwind, someone asks me . . . these are all taken right out of things that have\n25 happened to me. Someone will ask me, “Oh, so you must always just have known, right? This\n26 must have been a thing that’s just been nagging you for all these years.” I’d be like, “Well, that\n27 seems to be the narrative that everybody wants you to have.” Your parents would leave in the\n28 car and you were eight years old or something and as soon as the car was out of the driveway,\n29 you would run to your mother’s closet and try on her slips and her pearls or something. I’m not\n30 certain that’s my story. In Sailing Upwind, I was using what if . . . what if that’s not your story?\n31 What if you only just figured it out now when you’re 40? Does that make you any less trans?\n32 No. Somehow . . . there’s a continuity. You are now who you’ve always been and you’ve\n33 evolved because of all of the factors from the very beginning up until now. But, it doesn’t\n34 negate the fact that you’ve had to make choices in the moment. Right? So, I decided, like,\n35 “Huh? I’m feeling like acting on something.” And so, I did. I suppose a person . . . of course, it\n36 happens often, but you realize what these impulses are and you choose to avoid them. So, it’s\n37 kind of a both/and situation. Have I always been Freya? I’m quite sure that I have. Am I really\n38 female? I’m quite sure that I am. But, did I make choices to become so? Yes. Do I feel like it’s a\n39 charade or am I acting? I don’t see it that way. I feel like I’m my best self now. But, I think that\n40 my spouse, going all the way back to the question, I think she’s been able to find the continuity -\n41 you know, what’s the same about Freya? And, realized that in many ways I’m the same person\n42 who I’ve always been and, in many ways, I’m better. I’m certainly happier. There’s many things\nFreya Richman 8\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nthat have calmed for me because I was able to transition. Sometimes, 1 I feel like it’s almost\n2 embarrassing how happy I am. I feel kind of guilty about it sometimes because, you know, with\n3 everything that is going on . . . the world is burning down in so many ways, and here I’m feeling\n4 happier than I’ve ever felt. I guess I do feel like that kind of happiness is only good for the\n5 world. I feel like I’m more connected to love, in the big sense, than I ever have been before. I\n6 feel like there’s a certain kind of good karma that has graced me because of that. I feel like my\n7 natural daily encounters are filled with a lot of love because of that. Yeah.\n8 AJ: OK. So, you guys are still married and you’re raising two young people. That’s awesome.\n9 FR: Yes.\n10 AJ: How have your children been with this transition?\n11 FR: You know, like I mentioned, everyone has just kind of dealt with what’s come, everyone has just\n12 kind of rolled with what I’ve handed out. My incremental changes and eventually . . . well, there\n13 again. That culminating The Naked I production that I talked about where I performed Sailing\n14 Upwind, I was able to use that as a way to . . . I brought my family in. I think my family, Karen\n15 saw that first piece that I acted in, which that first piece was about a couple who decide to dress\n16 up in a way for the evening, they decide to trade genders for the evening and he dresses like she\n17 and she dresses like he. So, that was a story about crossdressers. Sailing Upwind was not that,\n18 Sailing Upwind was my story of transition. I was able to bring my family to that as a way to say,\n19 “Here’s some of the pieces that you might not know about some of the holes in the story. But,\n20 my children, to their credit, I never got from them, like, “Don’t drop me off at the door, drop me\n21 off six blocks and I’ll walk the last bit, lest any of my friends see you.” There’s been a little of\n22 that. I got invited to a group of moms of high school boys, which I have, to get together and talk\n23 about the trials of raising high school boys. There was a little bit of a question mark between my\n24 spouse and me and my son and me about whether I could show up for that. For that, he said\n25 no, “No, you can’t show up for that.” But, I don’t think that’s how it would go now, that was a\n26 few years ago. So, everybody knows who I am, they certainly know that I’m trans, they know all\n27 those things. Once in a while, early on, Sam would . . . I’d still have my old clothes in my closet\n28 and Sam would say, “You know, look at this,” he’d look at some suit or something, and say,\n29 “Wow, I like this, you should wear that some time.” And I’d say, “Sam, you know I’m not going\n30 to wear that, I don’t wear that anymore.” So, everybody is up to speed now. I used to . . . I\n31 would send little texts or something, like Emma would be at a violin lesson and I would be\n32 picking her up or something, or making arrangements, and I would say, “When you refer to me,\n33 be sure to use the right pronouns.” She would text back, “Yeah, I’m not stupid.” Like, “Yeah, I\n34 know, I get it, I get it.” That’s because the girl is . . . at the time she was 17 and going on 25 and\n35 the boy was 15 going on 14. It takes them a little longer.\n36 AJ: So, to the extent that you feel comfortable, Freya, can you describe what medical interventions\n37 you have undergone in your gender journey and if you have plans for future medical\n38 intervention?\n39 FR: Yes. I’ve been on hormones three years. Hormones was also something that I started and I was\n40 hiding. I was hiding that I had started this and, at a certain point, I had to blurt this out. That\n41 was a very difficult moment. I wish that I had been able to be completely forthcoming about\nFreya Richman 9\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nwhat my plans were and what I could see coming down the road. But, I 1 felt like that was a\n2 decision I kind of needed to make on my own. I didn’t want to negotiate about it. Besides that,\n3 I didn’t want to face having to have what, of course, is a difficult conversation, a difficult . . .\n4 what? I don’t know how to describe it. And, it was a rocky time. But, yeah, I’ve been on\n5 hormones three years. I think it’s important to say that I feel very strongly that we don’t need\n6 any medical intervention at all to be legitimate trans people. There’s another moment from\n7 Sailing Upwind, someone literally said this to me, “Oh, well, so, are you planning on transitioning\n8 all the way?” I was just like, “Um, excuse me? I’ve been transitioned all the way, I’m quite all\n9 the way.” I know exactly what they meant by that, but I shut that right down.\n10 AJ: Good for you.\n11 FR: I feel grateful. Like I said, I felt like in a way I sort of invented all this myself. It was happening to\n12 me and then only later did I discover, “Whoa, people know about this.” I found people in the\n13 community and I was just like, “I need to talk to you. Could I please come over to your house? I\n14 need to sit in your living room and talk to you.” And, people were like, “Yes, yes – come over\n15 and we will spend an evening of calling you by different pronouns.” Because I was freaking out,\n16 I needed someone to find to tell. And, once I had found that, things got a lot easier. So, I think\n17 it’s important to reiterate that the change happens in here and you don’t need any sort of\n18 intervention if you don’t want it. That said, I am investigating gender-confirmation surgery. I\n19 marched into my medical doctor’s office four years ago and said, “I want you to put in my record\n20 that I have whatever you want to call it – gender-identity disorder, if that’s still what they’re\n21 going with. I want this in my record.” He was like, “Done.” He was like, “I’ll change your name,\n22 I’ll change your pronoun right now.” I was like, “Maybe not, I don’t think I want to go there just\n23 yet. But, I want this noted.” And he was like, “Sure, done.” And, I started . . . we did a number\n24 of things. Here’s a story. My spouse and I found a group . . . I don’t know if I should say the\n25 name of this group, but it was a group for couples, a support group for couples, where one of\n26 the . . .\n27 AJ: Is it a secret group?\n28 FR: No, but I don’t know, I’m going to say something about something that happened that I didn’t\n29 think was very nice in this group.\n30 AJ: OK.\n31 FR: Anyway, it was a group that was for couples where one of the people in the couple had\n32 transitioned or was transitioning. This was a support group, really, for the people who weren’t\n33 the transitioning person. Right? It was a support for the spouses or partners of the\n34 transitioners.\n35 AJ: Got it.\n36 FR: It was all self-directed, there was no professional facilitator in the room. I felt like, in some\n37 ways, we were kind of in over our head because people were in some very vulnerable spots.\n38 There was one evening where I really got into some conflict with the people who were, in some\n39 ways, moderating this evening. Because they kept referring, one part of this couple kept\n40 referring to the person of the couple who had transitioned and that was someone who was\nFreya Richman 10\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\ntransitioning male to female, as being complete. What they were referring 1 to was having\n2 undergone surgery and now that they had done so, they were now complete. And, I just lost it.\n3 How can you say that a person isn’t complete until you’ve undergone this medical intervention?\n4 I was just like, “Don’t listen to that person. You’re complete, you’re complete . . . you’re\n5 complete. You may still be evolving but you’re complete. Whether or not you have your outie\n6 changed to an innie is personal preference and matters not at all to your completeness.” I went\n7 and I got the corroboration of my psychologist and I jumped through a bunch of hoops. I took a\n8 lengthy MM-something or other . . .\n9 AJ: MMPI.\n10 FR: Yup, and got a bunch of letters together, getting my dossier in support of this procedure. That’s\n11 my plan, if I can make it work. Insurance is going to have to help. That’s my next step is trying\n12 to make a case with insurance who are in the business of not paying for things. They’re in the\n13 business of avoiding helping you, if at all possible for them.\n14 AJ: Yeah, well thanks for sharing that. I really appreciate it. Looking back over your decision to\n15 express your true gender identity, would you change anything?\n16 FR: I think I would try to prepare my family a little sooner, maybe. I guess, in some ways, I’ve lived a\n17 little bit of . . . you know, do something and apologize later. I think I have regret about that.\n18 But, that’s the main thing. I mean, I wish that I had realized sooner.\n19 AJ: What have been some of the challenging aspects of expressing your true gender identity?\n20 FR: Well, I used to have a more professional job than I do now. And, I feel like I have encountered a\n21 bit of discrimination. It’s nothing I feel like is actionable, but I feel like my starting to push the\n22 envelope of gender expression was one thing that contributed to this organization’s asking me\n23 to leave. That’s sad for me. On the other hand, I feel like it would have been much more\n24 difficult in that role for me to make the changes that I did. I think it would have taken me a lot\n25 longer and would have been a lot more difficult to really accomplish effectively. I think\n26 energetically or karmically, there was a reason that I needed to leave that job because I needed\n27 the space for myself to make those kinds of changes. That job was pretty public so when you’re\n28 regularly hosting events where there’s hundreds of people in the room and you’re at the\n29 microphone and so on and so forth, transition is difficult because you’re really in the public eye.\n30 AJ: What did you do? What was your job?\n31 FR: I was the Arts Director for a community center in St. Paul. I programmed a season of events –\n32 concerts, entertainments, film.\n33 AJ: So, an arts administrator?\n34 FR: Yeah. I was the event planner, that sort of thing. I put together marketing materials and\n35 brochures advertising these things and hosted these events. Actually, in many ways, I’ve come\n36 around to . . . I still seize opportunities that are similar to that. Now, I got on the Transgender\n37 Equity Council of the City of Minneapolis and very proud to be involved.\n38 AJ: Congratulations.\nFreya Richman 11\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nFR: 1 Thank you very much.\n2 AJ: That’s awesome.\n3 FR: I know that you had something to do with the formation of that body.\n4 AJ: Yeah, with the formation, but, I mean, the members are all based on your meritorious\n5 applications.\n6 FR: Well, thank you. That group is still in its beginning stages, but it’s very, very thrilling for me.\n7 And, I have to say, that it . . .\n8 AJ: And, what do they do? Just to give a sense to the people who . . .\n9 FR: Oh, well, the Transgender Equity Council is a committee set up by the City of Minneapolis as\n10 really a volunteer advisory committee to the City Council on issues that affect transgender\n11 people in the community, and gender non-conforming people. And, just to be a perspective\n12 and, in a way, a liaison between our community and the city. And, in a way, to remind the City\n13 Council that this community exists in the city and we need to be aware of them and honor their\n14 needs and their presence.\n15 AJ: Well, that’s important work. Thank you for doing that.\n16 FR: Yeah, it’s really an honor for me. I am a dabbler, so I’ve managed to get myself involved in little\n17 projects and my children play . . . they’re both violinists. In fact, my daughter is now a freshman\n18 at the Julliard School in New York.\n19 AJ: That’s wonderful.\n20 FR: Thank you. They have come up playing chamber music in what’s called the Artaria Chamber\n21 Music School and a . . .\n22 AJ: Artaria, can you spell that?\n23 FR: Artaria? A-r-t-a-r-i-a. Artaria.\n24 AJ: OK.\n25 FR: And it’s lead by a string quartet, a professional string quartet in St. Paul called the Artaria String\n26 Quartet. They make a studio of student quartets, there’s maybe 10 or 12 student quartets that\n27 form this kind of society for learning how to play chamber music. A number of years ago, I\n28 started to volunteer as the host of these recitals and I would talk about music generally and I\n29 would talk about the composers . . . I’m a music aficionado and I helped bring up a couple of\n30 violinists, so there’s a lot of music in our house. That was some of my first return to public\n31 speaking, a few years ago, as the host of these evenings as myself, as Freya. And so, that\n32 community came to know me and, in a way, they kind of watched me settle into myself as the\n33 host of these . . . it’s been at least, I think, three seasons of three concerts a year. In fact, there’s\n34 another one, the fall concert for this year, is tomorrow. So, they’ve all . . .\n35 AJ: And these happen at your home?\nFreya Richman 12\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nFR: No, these happen at a church 1 in St. Paul.\n2 AJ: Got it.\n3 FR: I think four years ago, I asked, very sneakily, someone in that organization if when they get on\n4 microphone and they thank me for this or that – I wasn’t Freya then, I had my old name, but to\n5 refer to me with a female pronoun, just to shake it up.\n6 AJ: Oh, wow.\n7 FR: Just to slip that in there and she was like, “OK,” like, “Let’s do it, let’s shake it up.”\n8 AJ: Hmm. How did you come to your name – Freya?\n9 FR: Well, you know, I wish there were a better story. I don’t really like to say it because it only begs\n10 the question of what my old name was sometimes. If you were Edwin and then you were\n11 Edwina or something, you just say, “Well, it was a derivative of my old name,” or something.\n12 But, a better answer than that is that she’s . . . well, Freya, is the Norse goddess of love at war,\n13 which suits me.\n14 AJ: You’re a warrior.\n15 FR: I think I’m . . . yeah.\n16 AJ: A love goddess, but you said a love goddess of war.\n17 FR: No, I usually say, “Freya, yes, she’s the goddess of love – and war, so don’t fuck with me.”\n18 AJ: OK, we won’t fuck with you, Freya. So, we only have a few more minutes, we have hit an hour\n19 already. I know you had some thoughts that you wanted to share.\n20 FR: Yeah, well it was just a little bit that I wrote about . . . in a way, I touched on it because I was\n21 talking about who you are now, who you were then, things like that. People who know . . . one\n22 wonderful thing is that now where I work, and I really love where I work now, at the Co-op, at\n23 the Lakewinds Co-op, everyone knows me. Nobody knew me from before, so all the people at\n24 the Co-op, they only just met me now. So, it’s not difficult for them and I hear this all the time,\n25 it’s not difficult for them to view me as female, to view me as Freya. They know that I’m trans,\n26 but once in a while, probably every third or fourth day, somebody calls me sir or something. My\n27 friends and my co-workers are like, “What? That’s absurd.” They can’t figure it out. I say,\n28 “Well, my voice is too low, my hands are too big, blah, blah, blah.” And they’re like, “I don’t see\n29 that, I don’t see that because I just see Freya.” And so, I just wrote this little blurb: It’s most\n30 difficult to be around people who knew me from before I transitioned because they often can’t,\n31 or won’t, view me as Freya, who I see as my best self. They see the old me dressed differently.\n32 They hear my voice and ascribe it to someone they used to know. People who have come to\n33 know me recently know Freya’s voice and no one else’s, but people who have been acquainted\n34 with me for longer, sometimes think I am now what I was then. What they don’t understand is I\n35 was then what I am now. They can’t know what has been in my heart this whole time and they\n36 can only see outward manifestations. I am a woman, trans is only one adjective that describes\n37 me.\nFreya Richman 13\nThe Transgender Oral History Project Tretter Collection in GLBT Studies\nUniversity of Minnesota\nAJ: Wow, that’s actually a really, really perfect place to 1 end, Freya. Wow.\n2 FR: Thank you.\n3 AJ: Well, thank you so much for . . .\n4 FR: Thank you for giving me this opportunity.\n5 AJ: . . . being willing to participate in this project. I think it’s really important that we hear from all\n6 the voices, as many voices in our community as we can. I’m ecstatic that you were able to\n7 participate.\n8 FR: Thank you. I’m delighted to be part of it, I really am.\n9 AJ: Well, until we meet again, my friend.\n10 FR: Thank you very much.\n11 AJ: Thank you.", "_version_": 1710339101850337280, "type": "Moving Image", "collection": "p16022coll97", "is_compound": false, "parent_id": "97", "thumb_url": "https://cdnapisec.kaltura.com/p/1369852/thumbnail/entry_id/1_qezktnhs", "thumb_cdn_url": "https://dkp5i0hinw9br.cloudfront.net/2547745866a51bf6a12b73521cd274cfd26736c8.png", "children": [ ] }