Ep. 4 - Combating anti-trans legislation with art and centering trans youth with Jesse Freidin
#4: This episode’s guest is Jesse Freidin! Jesse is a queer photographer and author. His award-winning series “Are You OK?” addresses the dangerous wave of anti-trans legislation sweeping the country in a passionate attempt to erase stigma and elevate the voices of those most affected. Jesse’s work has been featured in The New York Times, NPR, Vogue, and more. He is the winner of the 2023 Critical Mass Top 50 award and the author of three books: When Dogs Heal: Powerful Stories of People Living with HIV and the Dogs That Saved Them (affiliate link), Finding Shelter: Portraits of Love, Healing and Survival (affiliate link), and Are You OK?
You can find Jesse at https://www.jessefreidin.com
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Links/resources in the episode:
Are You OK? website - Buy Jesse’s book!
Everyday Trans Activism is a production of Parents of Trans Youth, a social impact business providing learning, support, and community to parents and caregivers of transgender, nonbinary, and gender-diverse kids.
Host Mandy Giles (she/her) is the Texas parent of two transgender young adults and a fierce advocate for trans kids, their families, and the transgender community.
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FULL TRANSCRIPT
Mandy: Hey y'all, and welcome to the Everyday Trans Activism podcast. I am your host, Mandy Giles. My pronouns are she/her, and I'm the parent of two transgender young adults and the founder of Parents of Trans Youth. Today's guest is Jesse Freidin. Jesse was America's leading fine art dog photographer for the past 15 years, and now he has a different focus.
His current project, Are You OK?, documents the experiences and stories of trans and non-binary youth living in the United States during this time of pervasive anti-trans legislation. And my kiddo Mars was one of the youth included in the project, which was really exciting. So Jesse, welcome. Thank you so much for talking with me today.
Jesse: Yes, I'm happy to be here.
Mandy: Great. Well, go ahead and introduce yourself however you want to.
Jesse: OK, my name is Jesse. My pronouns are he/him. I have been a professional photographer for gosh, probably the past 17 years. I love my [00:01:00] job. I don't know what else I would do with my life. I, you know, as you mentioned for many, many years, I was photographing people's relationship with their dogs.
And now I've very much changed my focus. But the thing that I have always done is been obsessed with observing relationships and unconditional love. And that has just morphed into different bodies of work. And as I have walked deeper and deeper into my career, I've gotten closer and closer and more direct to that topic.
So that's, that's what I do.
Mandy: That's amazing. I like the emphasis on unconditional love. So I was going to ask how you made that leap from dogs to trans youth, but now I see the connection. So tell me more about that. What drew you to making portraits and having interviews in this amazing project with trans youth?
Jesse: So the project is called, Are You OK? And [00:02:00] the past three years, I traveled around the country and photographed and interviewed trans and nonbinary youth, specifically ones with supportive families, in order to show the world what happens when we love our trans kids, in order to show the world exactly the faces and voices and families of who is being harmed mentally, physically, psychologically, financially, by the anti-trans legislation that is taking over our country. You know, as I talk more and more about this project, the book was just, Volume One was just released in December. There's touring exhibits, I'm really deep into showing this, I'm trying to get it out in front of as many people as possible in as many ways as possible.
But the through line is this: I remember when I started my own photography, when I started doing photography, I was in college. I was using Polaroid cameras. I didn't know what I was doing. [00:03:00] I just was interested in documenting my world. There's actually a photo of me somewhere in my house when I was probably like four years old or three years old, holding a plastic Polaroid camera.
It's my favorite little toy. It was like a Fisher Price camera. And I used to pretend to take pictures with it. So I've always been really fascinated with using this little tool to observe my world and to observe relationships. And I think that has never, ever, ever changed. It's just gotten more and more specific.
But basically, I ended up leaving my quite successful career as a dog photographer after so many years to do Are You OK? because I was angry about the anti-trans legislation. Clearly, I knew that anti-trans legislation would not and will not stop with youth. You know, they're coming for the adults too, as a man of trans experience, I felt attacked.
And I also felt maybe even more angry that I [00:04:00] wasn't seeing enough people, especially in my community, of, of storytellers and journalists getting their hands dirty and letting go of their privilege to speak out. And I think right now there's many causes that have, that are very incendiary, and, you know, you gotta pick a side and you gotta speak up about it. And that's why I ended up here.
Mandy: I love the, the exhibits that you have put together. I haven't seen it in person, but I've seen it, you know, on social media and all that kind of good stuff. Tell me a little bit about that experience. I bet I, I can just imagine that's obviously totally different than seeing someone say, looking through a book or not even knowing like when those books go out in the world, and you don't know what their reactions are. Tell me what that's like to see people see your work.
Jesse: Yeah. It's a really good question. It's funny because when I, you know, did my commissioned dog portrait work, the, the end result was always [00:05:00] a, you know, clients coming to my nice studio. I would show, I had a big projector. I would show them the work. Everyone would be very happy. I had immediate feedback.
And as a photographer or just the kind of human I am, I was very addicted to that positive feedback. I was like, I'm gonna tell a story about you that you don't even know you want told, and then I'm gonna show it to you in images, and you're gonna cry because you're so moved. So that's always how I've been.
That's like how photography works for me. But it's incredibly powerful to, I've got two kinds of exhibits I do. Both a traditional gallery exhibit that's been going around to different nonprofit galleries right now around New England because I want it to be very accessible. I don't want anyone to be intimidated to walk into some fancy gallery where they won't be welcome. So I'm working specifically with nonprofit galleries that are very welcoming where any kid, any parent can walk in and feel welcome. I'm also [00:06:00] doing this pop-up exhibit that are these freestanding banners, and those go to conferences and schools and that's more educational, but I will tell you.
You know, I just had the pop-up exhibit at Harvard. Harvard has a wonderful trans conference. It was their second year. I put it up and, I just get to be kind of a secret spy. Because no one really knows. My face isn't part of the project. So I, I just get to kind of observe over the weekend.
I just sort of stood back and observed that pop up exhibit. And I observed people spending time looking at the portraits, reading the stories. There's QR codes, everyone can hear the audio of the kids. Yeah, and I make sure that for the gallery exhibits, there's QR codes, or some sort of audio component as well, so it's multi-sensory.
People get really drawn in, and I see them being moved to tears, I see them talking to their friends about it. I see them, you know, just really absorbing in a three-dimensional way. [00:07:00] This, the stories of families like yours. The message of Are You OK? which is - these kids are under attack, and they are loved, and that is unfair.
And it's, you know, I have an extreme amount of pride. And I also just love going to a gallery. You know, I had an exhibit recently in Portland. It was a packed opening. But again, not everyone knows me, and I had a mask on, because it's COVID, so. And so, I, yeah, secretly, I think I just like to look at people responding to my work and being moved, because that means I've done a good job.
Mandy: Wow. That would be an incredible experience. And you know what I didn't think about, and maybe this was your, your hope or your plan all along that to, to, for the exhibit to be an immersive experience. And you said they would be talking to their friends about it. And I think that is a whole other dimension that I wouldn't even have thought of about creating [00:08:00] conversations.
And I would imagine that's a big part of creating change because you have to be with other people and talk with other people to, to do that. Is that, was that part of your, your intention?
Jesse: Yeah, that's exactly right, that's exactly right. It's, it's, it's funny, as an artist, I get so deep into a project. Sometimes, when someone asks me what I'm doing, I'm like, I actually can't tell you. Because I'm so deep into the project. But it's very helpful to have. I feel like I've achieved my goal when someone can say exactly what you said.
The goal was, yes, always, to make this work. And not just do, I've published two other books of my photography that are kind of similar projects where I've photographed a misunderstood marginalized community and interviewed them. And you know, it, it's a book that gets sold in bookstores, like you can find it at Barnes and Noble.
Like those things are cool, but it did not create [00:09:00] change. It wasn't a change agent. And this project has always been the end goal to, like you said, having an immersive reaction and an immersive experience. Which then creates conversations between people, which then creates education and change. That's the whole point.
What I traditionally would do would be make a project, make a book, maybe do a book tour. What I did instead was make a project, and the first thing I did is make that pop-up exhibit because I, and I brought it to schools, and I started going to conferences, and I started doing a lot of virtual talks as well because I want this to be a change agent, completely.
Mandy: My gosh. And I, it sounds like it already is. People are talking about it. And I've, I've seen your work. It seems like every time I open up, you know, Instagram or whatever, that you're somewhere. So somewhere talking about the book and the, and the exhibits, which is, I hope I can, I can [00:10:00] see it someday.
I think that would be an amazing experience. You were talking about how, when you're really deep into creating the project, you almost don't, I don't know if you said you couldn't articulate where it was going or, or maybe you didn't know, obviously, you did have a goal of, of being of this project being a change agent. Did anything change as a result of your experiences with the 3 years traveling around the country and talking to the youth? Did you discover anything that, I guess, informed that plan? Or was it like, Hey, this is exactly the way it turned out to be the way I wanted it.
Jesse: Yeah, again, like a thing that I love about being an artist is like, yes, we, you know, I, I built a career, and it is a little bit linear, but also I always allow myself to just go off on these explorations and see what happens. And thank goodness because I don't know any other way to live, but I will say when I, you know, I moved back to [00:11:00] Massachusetts about a year ago, exactly.
And I had spent many years in New Mexico, I'd spent many years in other kind of rural places. And as this project was launching, as I had sort of wrapped up the photographing and travel part, and started posting about it online, and started doing these talks. I remember I ran into an old friend of mine here where I live, and we hadn't seen each other for years, and he is a therapist, and he basically said that one of his patients mentioned this project to him. He was, one of his patients said, there's this trans photographer doing this project and he realized that it was me. And then we, we connected and just by him sharing that information, that was like the first time I'd heard someone. Really, like, say, like, this is affecting people all over.
And that was the point, also, is I wanted to make the website is also a [00:12:00] tool. It's free and easy, and there's portraits and interviews and resources, including Parents of Trans Youth listed on there. I think I did not know. I say this in therapy a lot now, because I have to do a lot of therapy to keep myself sane. I think I didn't know what I was doing when I started.
I just had to create, I had to make the work. I didn't know that A) it was going to have, hopefully, an even larger effect. But I also didn't know that the effect it's now having is that I was trying to heal my own inner child. And like, that's taken a whole lot of therapy work, and it's working, you know, I mean, most artists, if you're making real work, you're doing, you're telling your own story. And so I think that's, now it's coming back to me now, especially the talks, getting to connect with families and youth that I've worked with, getting to see people react to this, the exhibits now[00:13:00] it's like the words that the kids and families have said aren't just about them. They're like about me, and I'm kind of absorbing all of that, and I did not know that was gonna happen, nor did I know I wanted that, but now I welcome it.
Mandy: Wow. Oh my gosh. I'm going to cry. That must have been to, to come to that realization, well, then now how is that, is that, does that change things like
Jesse: Now what?
Mandy: Well, yeah, like to see your life and your story and your childhood and your, your, your innards out there in the world. How is that?
Jesse: It's both horrible, excruciatingly terrible, and also really wonderful. And I think that, like I tell the kids and parents, that I think mostly that I work with, I didn't have families like the families that I've photographed. I didn't have a family that supported me from a young age.
So we all get to choose what we share about ourselves. [00:14:00] And for 40 years, I'm now 42, you know, of my life, I was incredibly private about anything having to do with my medical history, because being, you know, I don't love the word trans, I identify as a man, and I am part of the trans community.
And I think that now I get to choose how I speak about myself and my own experience. Again, this is not something I expected would happen, but I must have known that I needed it deep inside, because like that's what artists do. It's like we just spit out the things in our brain. I think now I get to accept this like parental love from all these parents that have been so nice to me and continue being nice to me.
And that's helping me just be a better person. You know, I think I'm just coming into myself more through this project. And I was like, this project's about the kids. But like, stupid, it's actually about me. And that's fine.
Mandy: Oh, that [00:15:00] is incredible, but that makes sense. I don't consider myself to be an artist. And so I, my brain does not go there in terms of like, you know, where are you in your work and all that kinda stuff. But that makes sense that you would be somewhere in there openly and vulnerable and, and, and raw.
Yeah, thinking about all that emotion and, and rawness. I’m sure three years that must've been exhausting and emotional. How did you, how did you keep going? How did you take care of yourself all through those three years?
Jesse: I was at a little like queer creative writing meet-up cute dinner thing the other night. We all just brought in whatever we were working on and sat and then shared, and I was working on editing for the next block of interviews from this project, [00:16:00] and I date every one of interviews and transcriptions and I was like, holy heck. I was on the road for so long, you know, I am not a numbers person, but I think I did my taxes recently, and I had to calculate the miles.
It, you know, it's like tens of thousands of miles, and I was on the road so, so many days out of the year. I just kept on going on these trips and coming back, and then going out and coming back. And I think I kind of just I think now, I wasn't doing much caretaking. I mean, I was a little bit, you know, but I had such a sense of urgency.
And that's, for me, I feel safe when I have action that I can take. I feel unsafe when I'm sitting, and I don't have anything I can do. So in a way, this project was me taking care of myself. At the same time, it was incredibly grueling. I was on the road every day, shooting every day. Sometimes I would be on the [00:17:00] road for 12 or 16 hours, you know, it was insane.
And because I was in the solution, because I was taking action, that made me feel much better than hiding. And I think now, thankfully I, I have a team of therapists to kind of like help me clean up the, what I did, what I didn't do during those three years. And that's just my process. And you know, my friends who know me know that that's what I do.
I just get, I fall into a hole when I am in a project, and then I crawl out, and it takes me a while to regulate.
Mandy: Well, yeah, that makes sense because doing the work is so deep and consuming and engrossing. And if it's immersive for the people who -- I was going to say consume it -- to view and to be a part of it, I can only imagine how it would be for you, and it would take you a little while to extract [00:18:00] yourself or, well, you probably never would extract yourself from that work.
Jesse: No. I think,
Mandy: It’s always going to be a part of you.
Jesse: right, and I think now I'm, you know, it did take a lot of really intense energy. Not, you know, the best and easiest parts were showing up at a session. You know, again, here's the parking lot, I've got my clipboard of who I'm photographing. That was easy and like, that's when I was calm. What was difficult, but also, I'm comfortable, for some reason was driving through all these states.
Stopping at the gas station, you know, trying to grabbing food at all these places where people wanted people like me to be dead. And I also know that I, the only reason that I survived because I carry an extreme amount of privilege and being a white binary-gendered person. People look at me, and I drive a truck and I wear a camo hat, and I wear boots because that's what I like to wear because I love [00:19:00] my gender, but also I can fit in.
Mandy: Mm hmm.
Jesse: And no one ever stopped me. I, for every session, I don't know if you remember, but when I photographed you and Mars, I always wear a trans-affirming t-shirt of some sort, you know? But the second that session is done, even if it's hot as heck in Texas, I put a hoodie on, and I continue my drive. So, all that's to say is yes, it was grueling, and I don't know any other way.
Mandy: Yeah. I was thinking about the, the poses for the portraits and they're all similar and all structured the same way. Can you tell me a little bit about that and how you decided to do it that way?
Jesse: Yeah. For all the years that I did my commission work, you know, it was always in a client's home. I never did studio work, really. It was always in a client's home. There's chaos. I'm like, OK, what light am I going to find? What cool [00:20:00] details? Is it the yard? Is it the couch? It's like, there's just total chaos and energy and moving objects.
And like, I love being again in that challenging environment. I wanted - I knew that I wanted to do this. And again, I always want to do work that's not being done. And when I look at images of trans youth and even trans adults, I'm seeing them in, you know, sort of these like placid environments or depressive environments. I wanted this to be a social study. I wanted it to have a strong social justice message. And for me, there was some sort of scientific lens to it. And so I knew from the very beginning that there was going to be a repetitive visual structure that was firm but also loose, you know. I wasn't like measuring how far I was away or how much negative space there was because that's too much.
I wanted there to be a balance [00:21:00] of chaos and control in those images. But again, I wanted every youth seated at a slight angle. There's always the parents or supportive people behind them. You can't see their faces. I did that 150 times and for me again, it's a social study. It's like we study a species, we study a species of butterflies by like, pinning them down to a board the exact same way and looking at them, you know, we study animals in the wild by looking at them and repeating the same perspective in order to let the differences in each one come out, and that's how I viewed it.
And what I love most about the image is really, A) it's just like that last breath that comes out, and that's when I make that frame. But also like the details, like what, what's your kid wearing? What were you wearing? What was your posture like, what, all those tiny details for me tell just an immense story.
Mandy: I think for me, [00:22:00] looking at the portraits, and it's amazing that they're all different kids, obviously, and all in different places and different family structures and different experiences. And yet, there's a power. And almost like a peace. And a strength that just shines through every kid. Definitely I've seen what you're talking about, like in the media when they have an article about trans kids, it's always, you know, in the shadows and turning away and looking out of a rainy window or something.
And this is just an immense opportunity for the kid to be front and center. Here I am. And, you know, mom and dad or whoever, or brothers or siblings or chosen family are in the back supporting me, but, but they're not the center of it. And it just, that I, to me was, was the connecting thread. [00:23:00] And, you did such a good job of capturing the essence of every kid, like thinking about Mars. Mars was a little bit, I guess, serious in their, their pose in a way, not like with a huge smile - sort of this defiant look of “don't mess with me.” And I know who I am. That's the way Mars has always been. I was thinking the other day about the portrait and when Mars was really little they would say I do it, I do it! Like when we would try to do something: No, I do it! And that came through that just this, I do it feeling. And so you've, you've really done an incredible job capturing that.
Were there any stories that I mean, I'm sure, you know, every kid has a story. Every family has a story. Were there any that really stood out to you as particularly memorable or, or surprising?[00:24:00] Something that maybe you didn't expect or particularly touching?
Jesse: Well, I will just say that it's, it's very meaningful to hear that that's what you saw come out in your child. Because that is what I'm, what I hope to do is give kids an opportunity to bring that energy forward. Not, you know, angry energy, but a strong energy. And I don't think that they're given, I don't think trans children are really ever given the opportunity to say, it's OK to be strong and defiant and know who you are.
And not every kid brought that in the exact same way, but every kid did bring that. And again, this is why photography is so exciting is because we're actually making art in real time and I have to look that child in the eye. And I, the only reason I survive is because I am also a defiant person that is strong and sometimes it's [00:25:00] quiet and sometimes it's loud.
And I have to bring that into my mind mentally and bring that into my mind and like visually embody that energy and just not tell Mars, this is what I want from you. Psychologically give them the opportunity to show that to me. And I think that's why a lot of these portraits do show that energies because I'm just giving them the opportunity, and I think that's powerful.
But to answer your question it's, it's hard. You know, was, were there any stories that were surprising? Nothing surprised me. Nothing that I heard surprised me in any way. I will say you know, one, one story I was editing yesterday was, incredibly powerful, which was an interview of, of a I think he was probably a senior, maybe I want to say at Harvard when I photographed him last year, and he was talking about [00:26:00] how - I connected with him a lot.
He was talking about how privileged he was, and he had supportive family that he got to transition medically and, you know, at a younger age, and that how he always thought once he transitioned, and, you know. quote unquote passed, problematic as that term is, that he would just live his life and no one would ever know.
And that's, that was me. That was me for so, so, so, so long. And at the same time, in that short 50-minute interview, he was saying he's, you know was going to go to law school. He's involved in fighting the anti-trans legislation in various ways. And he was saying that even though he has so much privilege, he lives in a safe state, safe, you know, Blue State, in quotation marks, has, has a supportive family, has an extreme privilege of being able to disappear into society. He's like, I cannot be an activist for change and hide who I am. He's [00:27:00] like, I have a responsibility to share who I am - in whatever ways he wants to - in order to fight for my community And I just of course connected with that message so much and the very last part of the interview, which of course I wish I had in front of me, he was talking about how hard that choice was But he said and no one else, you know, I always ask it's like do you have anything else to add?
And usually like no, but he said I want to say one more thing he said something like this is hard. All of these things are hard. But I would not be alive if I hadn't transitioned. And this is the best thing that's ever happened to me. And I'm so grateful that I can share my voice. And that is what gives me strength and power and joy.
And it kind of like wrapped up the whole project. If there was one interview and portrait, I mean, that's a pretty good one.
Mandy: Yeah. I mean, like, and scene. I mean that, oh, [00:28:00] wow, that that takes my breath away. Just yeah, that power of using, of using your voice and using what you have and your talents and, and exactly the way you have, that you have this incredible award-winning talent of photography to make change in the world, which is just so incredibly powerful.
So volume one is out and then what is next? There's a volume two.
Jesse: It's a good question. I, for myself, if for nothing else, books, you know, everyone's like, ah, books are so cool. And they are so cool, except they also are so hard. It's hard to make a book. It's hard to get a book out in the world the right way. It's hard to like, OK, how do I sell it?
How do I distribute it? It's a real headache. And we make books not to make money, but to get the story into as many hands as possible. [00:29:00] So I do feel very compelled, and I'm going to start working on it in January. Volume 2. And Volume 2, in my mind, is… Volume 1 is an 8x10, very easy-to-order book that you can order through my website, through Blurb, a self-publishing, print-on-demand company.
I think it's a really great quality, and I wrote a very short intro. It's almost It's a trade book. I want it to be accessible to the masses. I made it as affordable as I could, even though it is a little bit expensive. But Volume 2 is really like the real book for me. It's going to be a larger collection of portraits.
I've written a very personal, long-form essay about my family's history, the Jewish trauma, the Holocaust trauma that I carry, that has informed why I do this work. It's going to include a really wonderful introduction by this great art critic about the importance of archiving queer and trans stories, and it's also going to include some, somehow, a collection of some of the amazing [00:30:00] emails and letters and note cards and text messages that have gotten over the years from kids and parents about how the project has affected them positively.
And that is the real story for me, and there also will be QR codes and links on the audio. It's going to be like a big old art book.
Jesse: if I can accomplish that task.
Mandy: I cannot wait for that because Mars will be in that one. It sounds like almost an exhibit in, in a book, like an immersive experience to have. That would be so cool to have, like the texts and emails and all that kind of good stuff to really show what the project was like for you, and not just like a passive viewer kind of, of just, you know, going to a gallery or something,
Jesse: That's exactly right. I mean, it's, it's, it would be a monograph, a larger format book that is kind of like an exhibit in a book. And it's putting myself in it more than I think. Again, you know, this is a story [00:31:00] about me that everyone told for me, which, and they didn't know. So I thank everybody for doing that.
Mandy: Oh my gosh. Well, thank you so much for the work that you do. And so much for your time today. Where can people find you? Where can they buy the book? Where do you want people to go?
Jesse: Yeah well, I appreciate your time as always, Mandy. So the website is AreYouOKportraits.com and you can buy the book. There is a “buy the book” tab and you'll. You can click into a button that will bring you right to purchase a book, and there's also going to be, there's information on both volumes on that page.
So when volume two comes out, you'll be able to buy that as well. On the website is also a bunch of portraits that you can, and stories you can read, including a lot of audio clips. You can hear the kids two minute interviews, sections of interviews.
Mandy: I didn't realize that. I'll have to go listen to that.
Jesse: yeah, you would think I would know who's on there and I don't.
Sometimes [00:32:00] I change it out. so yeah, it's, it's like, it's again, kind of like a living exhibit, you know, the information is there, and it's accessible.
Mandy: Yeah. Oh, that's so cool. OK. Well, I will definitely include all that information in the show notes and Listener, if you would like to show gratitude for Jesse and his work and amazing change that he's making in the world, please go buy his book. You can even donate, I believe, to the creation of the second volume which is super important and very selfishly important to me because Mars is in that one.
So Jesse, thank you again for taking the time to talk with me today. I enjoyed it so much.
Jesse: Yeah. See you, Mandy. Thank you.