Interview with Faye Seidler

Faye Seidler is a dedicated transgender activist, educator, and writer focused on improving awareness and representation of transgender people across healthcare, education, government, and business sectors. Growing up in poverty, Faye developed a pragmatic approach to life and fashion, valuing comfort and utility over trends. Despite these humble beginnings, she has become a respected voice in the fight for trans rights and social justice. Faye’s advocacy centers on challenging harmful stereotypes that have long dominated media portrayals of trans individuals, especially the outdated and reductive tropes of victims, sex workers, or villains. Drawing on historical data and cultural analysis, she emphasizes the need for authentic transgender representation and participation in storytelling.

 

A self-taught researcher and lifelong writer, Faye combines her passion for social justice with grassroots activism. She actively works to create safer school environments through initiatives like the Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) project in North Dakota, mentors LGBTQ+ youth, and develops transgender cultural competency trainings in healthcare. Faye understands the complexities of gender dysphoria and the transition journey, recognizing that medical interventions like hormones and surgery are tools that bring some relief but not the entirety of liberation. She advocates for self-acceptance beyond passing and stresses the importance of emotional support from friends and partners. Currently involved in community journalism and education, Faye plans to expand her work by pursuing continuing education grants and possibly writing memoirs. Supported by a loving polyamorous relationship, she finds strength in love, community, and the hope of a future where transgender people can live authentically without societal limitations.

 

Monika: Today, I have the pleasure and honor of interviewing Faye Seidler, an inspiring American trans activist, educator, and writer from Fargo, North Dakota.

Faye: Hi Monika! Thanks so much for having me. I’m really excited to be here and to share my thoughts and experiences with you. It means a lot to have a space where we can talk openly about trans issues and activism.

Monika: Could you please tell us a little bit about yourself?

Faye: I’m a trans activist, writer, and nerd with a strong belief in a better future. My work primarily focuses on my experiences, humor, and research, all of which seek to create positive change for the transgender community.
Monika: I noticed your short story was featured in The New York Times series “Transgender Today.” What motivated you to come out publicly?

Faye: I saw a serious lack of visibility in our community, and I realized most people were getting their information about trans people from stereotypes portrayed on television. I also saw a medical system that told trans people to blend in, deny, or hide their identity. There was a tremendous amount of erasure of what it meant to be trans, with the identity itself controlled and enforced as a narrow binary by the medical industry.

Monika: How did you think being open about your identity could help change those misconceptions?

Faye: I knew that to overcome those barriers, we had to be open. Those of us who could safely take that risk had to show the population that we are real, authentic, and diverse. That trans women could prefer jeans to dresses, that trans men could enjoy cute things without subverting their identity, and that gender is more complicated than a politically defined binary focused solely on genitals or arbitrary social roles.

The Marshmallow Challenge via YouTube.

 

Monika: You’ve been a champion for many causes related to transgender rights. Which initiatives that you’ve been involved in do you consider the most successful?

Faye: The North Dakota Safe Zone Project researched and developed a system for any pride center to create safe zone training tailored to their state. It focused on effective ways to write grants, organize the structure, and communicate with organizations. Although I felt the project was successful and we produced a detailed report with our findings, I had incredible difficulty getting anyone to care about it.

Monika: What other work have you been doing to advance transgender rights in your state?

Faye: I’ve been working across North Dakota to get an anti-discrimination measure passed, but our incredibly red state has been resistant to hearing us. At the same time, I’ve been providing transgender cultural competency training to local businesses, including banks, rape and abuse crisis centers, and police departments. This work energizes me, and I enjoy doing it immensely. 

Monika: You showed great courage by testifying in front of the North Dakota House of Representatives to advocate for change. What was that experience like?

Faye: It was disheartening to see more than 30 people from different social, economic, racial, and religious backgrounds stand up to demand anti-discrimination protections. We heard over four hours of testimony explaining why these protections were necessary. I spoke at length, and I wrote a document dispelling all the myths I expected the opposition to present. Later, I heard the committee head declare that he had heard no reports of discrimination, that it did not occur in our state, and that we did not need proactive protection.

Monika: How did you respond after facing such rejection despite all that effort?

Faye: It was then that I realized no change would come to this state until there were consequences for their decision to ignore and erase our experiences. I wrote a widely viewed article explaining why we have to leave North Dakota, sending a message about the costs of their position. Each year, they lose more students to more progressive states, reduce their hiring pool significantly, and make people less likely to want to move here.
Monika: At what age did you begin your transition, and how did that process start for you?

Faye: If we’re talking medically, I started hormones at 25. The identity itself was something I constantly fought and denied for much of my life. I didn’t think it was possible to be anything other than what I was assigned at birth. I grew up in a different time, where the word “transgender” didn’t exist in my area. Everyone I told about my feelings and confusion looked at me like I was crazy or severely mentally disturbed.

Monika: That must have been incredibly isolating. How did those feelings affect you personally?

Faye: I started to take this to heart and assumed I was broken. To this degree, I tried to ignore the feelings and just get on with my life. I had hoped it would go away, like so many of us do, but as a medical condition, the feeling of dysphoria only got stronger. The shame I felt at feeling like I was a woman when everyone said I wasn’t magnified over time until I tried killing myself.

Monika: What happened after that turning point? How did you begin to find support and hope?

Faye: That wasn’t the turning point, but afterwards, I started trying to improve my life, and that included talking to a trans woman for the first time. I talked about my experience, feelings, and shame, and they reciprocated. They showed me for the first time that it was okay to feel like I did, that it made sense, and that I was allowed to feel it. They helped me find a therapist and, from there, an endocrinologist. In that regard, it was incredibly difficult, but I consider myself lucky for finding a mentor, someone who I would eventually model myself after and create a mentor program to help others like I was helped.

Cosplaying Gurren Lagann.

Monika: During your transition, did you have any transgender role models who guided or inspired you?

Faye: Not in terms of transitioning specifically, but Julia Serano shaped my entire research and understanding of what it means to be trans in her book Whipping Girl. I took half a page of notes for every page I read and thirsted for the knowledge like someone who’d run a marathon without any water. My mentor I met online was really helpful in explaining everything to me in terms of timetables and healthy dosages. I also found a significant other, who was a trans woman further along in her transition, who helped me a lot with respecting and understanding myself and my body. So, I don’t know if “followed” is the correct word, but there were several people who lifted me up to places I could have never reached alone. 

Monika: Are there any transgender women you admire and respect today? 

Faye: Like in the answer before, Julia Serano, but also Janet Mock and Laverne Cox. More recently Jamie Clayton with her work in Sense8 and, of course, The Wachowski sisters in general. There is also Mara Keisling of the National Center for Transgender Equality. In general, though, I have a high appreciation and respect for any trans woman living their own truth and being their authentic self. Since I know that struggle, I can always see the beauty of the person who fights against it and strives toward happiness. I especially admire the youth who are coming out today and fighting their own battles to be accepted in schools.

Monika: Many trans women pay a high price for being true to themselves, losing families, friends, jobs, and social standing. Did you experience such losses? What was the hardest part of your coming out?

Faye: I was preemptive in this endeavor. I made sure to surround myself with people who didn’t like me because I didn’t like me. I had no real emotional support prior to transitioning and no real friends or family to be able to reject me. I worked a nothing cooking job and mostly lurked online, invisible to others. That was how I coped with the dysphoria, by not being anything. I never knew I was consciously doing that until transitioning and discovering how awesome it was to be seen for the first time, to have friends I knew would be there for me if I needed them. As a mentor, like this question implies, I do warn people transitioning that they should expect to lose at least one person. My life was set up so I had nothing left to lose first.
Monika: The transgender community is often described as thriving today. As Laverne Cox famously said, “Trans is beautiful.” Teenage girls become models and dancers, talented women become writers, singers, and actresses, while those interested in politics, science, and business succeed as politicians, academics, and businesswomen. How do you view the current situation of transgender women in society? Are we merely scratching the surface, or is real change truly happening?

Faye: It is something that is ever-increasing in acceptability, especially as visibility increases. In America, only 16 percent of individuals personally know someone who is trans. That means the vast majority of people are getting biased information from the media. But that number has doubled in the last five years, so in another five years, it should be around 32 percent. The more people that personally know someone who is trans, the more likely we are to be humanized as what we truly are, human. We each share different life experiences, talents, personalities, hopes, and dreams. We’re complicated but also simple in the way most humans are. We need jobs, we want to do well, most of us want a family, and to leave something of ourselves behind.

 

Presenting Community Award to Gender Therapist.

 

Monika: What impact do you think this growing familiarity has on everyday challenges faced by transgender people?

Faye: Understanding this about trans people means understanding that the label doesn’t make us different or less capable. As we become more familiar with the identity, we become less awkward around issues like bathroom usage, because it just doesn’t matter. Pronouns become less of a battle, and allowing name changes becomes more formalized.

I think every year we will see more success stories and more trans people doing well and thriving. We’ll also see more murders and discrimination lawsuits because we still have growing pains. But now we have better health care, more aware doctors, companies that actually seek us out, and companies that make sure everyone is respected. 

Monika: On the other hand, the so-called restroom wars continue to rage, and transgender women face violence and even death on the streets. How do these ongoing challenges affect the community’s hope and resilience?

Faye: I touched on this in my last answer, and as these issues persist, it is hard for trans people to see a hopeful future. It’s difficult to thrive when one doesn’t feel safe. Unfortunately, it’s not going to stop anytime soon. We have 22 states that refuse to pass anti-discrimination bills. There is a religiously motivated political party in the United States that gets re-elected by throwing trans people under the bus. We have a Department of Education leader stating that schools don’t have to protect the LGBTQ+ community.

Monika: Given this hostile environment, how does the community continue to fight back and find strength?

Faye: None of this will stop anytime soon, and every year we’ll read the names and remember those we’ve lost. But we keep fighting for everyone who is still here. We fight to make sure that number approaches zero. We create safe spaces that allow our culture and our people to thrive, even when everyone else wants us to fail, to be silent, or to not exist. We’re a badass group of the most resilient people you’ll ever meet, because compared to gender dysphoria and our internal battles, oppression can’t win.

Monika: The transgender cause is often presented together with other LGBTQ communities. As the penultimate letter in this abbreviation, do you think the transgender community is able to effectively promote its own issues within the larger LGBTQ group?

Faye: I think so! The thing to understand is that LGBTQ+ individuals are a minority, each experiencing a specific kind of sex discrimination. It can be really hard at times when the transgender community is thrown under the bus or when drag queens use our slurs as common language. But I don’t think we have the numbers, power, or voice to make institutional change without being part of a larger group. For every bad story we hear of an LGB leader being transphobic, we see organizations putting effort into ensuring they have trans leaders.

Monika: What do you think is the path forward for improving unity and mutual support within the LGBTQ community?

Faye: I think this will get better over time. I know the history of being thrown under the bus. I know of the many times gender identity was sacrificed as a bargaining chip to gain sexual orientation rights. I know it hasn’t always been pretty, and that the Stonewall movie featured a white gay cis dude leading the birth of our movement. But I also know the way forward is through unity. It is through creating action plans that involve a thriving and accepting culture. If we can’t fix the drama and infighting that happens within our own community, what chance do we have to change the hearts and minds of those outside of it?

END OF PART 1

PART 2

 

All the photos: courtesy of Faye Seidler.

© 2017 - Monika Kowalska

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