NYC Trans Oral History Project

Interview of Simo for the NYC Trans Oral History Project

Interview of Siobhan Meow for the NYC Trans Oral History Project

Sean Ebony Coleman is the founder of Destination Tomorrow, a LGBTQ+ center in the Bronx that provides services like job readiness, HIV testing, and emergency housing. In this interview, he describes growing up in Brooklyn with his grandmother and brother. At a young age, he became involved in the ballroom scene, a community which still provides most of his close relationships. Sean also discusses...

Born in rural California, Eli Erlick recounts her experiences as one of the only trans kids in her area, which led her, at age 15, to co-found Trans Student Educational Resources, an organization that works to implement trans-inclusive policy models in school systems across the country. Erlick also discusses her time studying Gender Studies at Pitzer and UC Santa Cruz, as well as formative politic...

Interview of Erica Dawn Lyle for the NYC Trans Oral History Project

Interview of Daphne Banks for the NYC Trans Oral History Project

Born in Long Island, Ayelet Hashachar Adelaman recounts growing up in Jerusalem, participating in an anarchist drum line group called Kasamba, and discovering a positive relationship between her anti-Zionism and transness. Since moving back to North America, Adelman has worked as a Hebrew teacher and an herbalist, recently teaching about plants with affinity for sex hormones in the context of Jewi...

Qais Kamran describes his experiences growing up as a first generation Iranian Jew in Los Angeles, attending Jewish day school and discovering the importance of oral history to his family’s community. After attending UC Davis, Kamran moved to Tel Aviv, where he forged intergenerational relationships that allowed him to get in touch with his own transmaculinity. In Palestine, Kamran became involved...

Interview of Yves Bess Golden for the NYC Trans Oral History Project

Interview of Ita Segev for the NYC Trans Oral History Project

Interview of Iman Le Caire for the NYC Trans Oral History Project

Interview of Sawyer DeVuyst for the NYC Trans Oral History Project

Ari Brostoff is an author and editor at Jewish Currents magazine. In this interview, they recount reading Jewish historical fiction as a child growing up in California. After attending college on the East Coast, where they spent time engaging with queer theory texts from the 1990s, Ari moved to New York and quickly became embedded in organizing work. They were involved with Beyond the Pale, an ant...

Interview of Mikail Khan for the NYC Trans Oral History Project

Gage Spex discusses growing up in Western Massachusetts, where, at a young age, they fell in love with fashion through older movies, like those of Judy Garland. Gage later moved to San Francisco to attend art school, eventually settling in NYC. Gage became heavily involved with the nightlife scene, opening venues like Dreamhouse and Spectrum. Gage also describes coming to terms with the fluidity o...

Interview of Dr. T.J. by NYC Trans Oral History Project

Interview of Mx. Enigma for the NYC Trans Oral History Project

Aelita Parizek was born in Kansas, and grew up in Hawai’i. At age 18, they moved to New York and went to college at Parsons, and later Rhode Island School of Designs. Aelita currently runs a “self made” business and shows their art pieces, inspired by Dr. Pimple Popper and tyrpophobia, in NYC. Aelita also works as a cam girl, and creates their own hardware jewelry along with making her large artwo...

Interview of Sandy Loam by NYC Trans Oral History Project

Macy Rodman was born in Juneau Alaska. During her early life she describes visits to the local sex shop where she learned about gay life, including NYC’s glam scene which featured images of modified and expansive versions of femininity including Amanda Lepore. She explored making music with her sister which grew into her own project with her move to NYC. She also helps produce the podcast, Nymphow...

Interview of Lix Z by NYC Trans Oral History Project

Image Object was raised in an inclusive and accepting environment. Object underwent many queer expressions, each expanding his identity politics and teaching him more about who Object is. The nightlife scene in NYC gave Object room to grow and play and push through the boundaries of gender. Object discusses NYC nightlife centers, parties and bars, including Merrie Cherry's, Sugarland, DAGnet, and...

Ric explores the complexity of language in the trans community, and her experiences interviewing trans elders for the NYC Trans Oral History Project. Ric also reflects on drug use and how it is not necessarily a form of escapism, but a way to view things differently.

Tanya Asapansa-Johnson Walker is a co-founder of the New York Transgender Advocacy Group (NYTAG). Here, she shares her history of LGB and trans activism in New York City. Born on Staten Island, Miss Tanya describes her childhood confronting racism, homophobia, and transphobia along the east coast of the United States before joining the military and relocating to Germany. Upon her return, she moved...

Dean Spade relates his journey and politicization first through the support of his mother in conservative Virginia, his first tastes of feminism and increasingly his work to provide support and resources through the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, advocating for transgender, intersex and gender non-conforming low income communites and people of color. Spade's story spans from Virginia and back and fort...