Interview with Andy Marra

An interview with Andy Marra, a Korean-American trans woman, activist, educator, and public policy advocate based in New York City. At the time of this interview, she was the Executive Director of the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF,) an advocacy and legal services organization serving and lobbying for trans and gender nonconforming people. Prior to her work with TLDEF, she worked in communications and media with the Arcus Foundation and GLAAD, with GLSEN on safe schools issues, and with the Korean-American Education and Exposure Program (KEEP.) In this oral history interview, Marra discusses her upbringing as a transracial adoptee in Albany, New York and her early experiences of gender nonconformity, her entry into activism through involvement with GLSEN in high school, her move to New York City, connections with other queer and trans people of color, her work with GLSEN, GLAAD, KEEP, and TLDEF, and her thoughts on visibility, transracial adoption and identity, philanthropy, and the use of litigation in pursuit of trans justice. Specifically, she discusses her work in media focused on Asian and Pacific Islander queer and trans people, her experiences finding progressive Korean-American community through KEEP and return to South Korea to reconnect with her birth mother, and her entry into legal advocacy work.

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View At: https://umedia.lib.umn.edu/item/p16022coll97:239
Citation: Cite

Item Information:

Identifier: h128nf00v
Collection: Oral Histories with People of Color
Institution: Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection, University of Minnesota
Creator(s): Marra, Andy
Contributor(s): Beam, Myrl
Billund-Phibbs, Myra
Chamness, Daria
Publisher: University of Minnesota Minneapolis Libraries
Date Created: Feb. 26, 2021
Genre: Oral Histories
Transcriptions
Subject(s): Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF)
Places: New York > Albany County > City of Albany > Albany
New York
Topic(s): Asian LGBTQ+ people
Asian transgender people
BIPOC
Gender non-conforming people
Interracial adoption
Korean American women
LGBTQ+ activism
Trans women
Transgender people of color
Transgender political activists
Resource Type: Moving image
Text
Language: English
Rights: Copyright undetermined
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