Collections by Michelle Brown WSG Andrea Jenkins

Too much of trans-history has gone unrecorded and untold but our guest Andrea Jenkins is capturing this precious treasure. Andrea Jenkins is the Trans Oral Historian for the Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Studies at the University of Minnesota. The Project will empower individuals to tell their story, while providing students, historians, and the public with a more rich foundation of primary source material about the transgender community. Jenkins has already interviewed over 125 members of the Transgender community ranging in age from 18 to 85.

She is also and most notably a playwright, curator, visual artist, poet, writer, spoken word artist, performer, and trans-activist.  Her work is concerned with the interplay of words, mediums and genres that can be mashed together to create a new narrative. She views her work as collage, working primarily with paper and mixed media as a visual form of curation. Taking various images that have been artfully produced for the purpose of consumerism and mixing them with social justice messages and images brings attention to the issues of inequality.

ANDREA JENKINS has more than 25 years of public service experience as a Minneapolis City Council policy aide, nonprofit executive director and consultant, and Hennepin County employment specialist and is currently a candidate for City Council in Minneapolis Ward 8.

In 2016, the murders of 27 transgender people were reported, making it the deadliest year on record for Transgender people. By February 27, 2017 five deaths had been reported two in New Orleans within days of each other. Statistics show the average life expectancy for Black transgender women is 35 years. Trans-genius, talent, lives and stories gone too soon.