Queer, Trans Advocate Andy Izenson Wants to Take Us Back to Our Roots

What happens when we go beneath the surface?

“My partners and I planted that during our commitment ceremony, along with our vows to each other and to the land.” Andy Izenson says, pointing at a Rose of Sharon shrub just a few feet in front of us. We’re standing on their porch in Upstate New York; their old, but eager Beagle, a rescue named Toby, sits at our feet. 

Rose of Sharon is a type of hibiscus that blooms pink-purple flowers. Like most flowers and other tokens of symbolism, the Rose of Sharon holds many meanings. Its name originates in the Song of Solomon (the Biblical one, not the Toni Morrison one), in reference to Solomon’s wife. In Hebrew, sharon means “a level, plain, or fertile place.” The connection to fertility aligns with the South Korean belief that the Rose of Sharon symbolizes an “eternal blossom that never fades.” So the choice of Rose of Sharon, a flower that represents ever-lasting, continuous love, makes sense for a commitment ceremony, even if those same vows buried under the earth with the flower’s roots included a tidbit about honoring the commitment to one another for as long as it is healthy and joyful for each of them. What is love if not a representation of choice? Of freedom? 

These values of love and freedom are embedded in both Andy’s life and work. They’re senior legal director for Chosen Family Law Center, Inc. (CFLC) and senior associate at Diana Adams Law & Mediation, PLLC—both based in New York City. They work with and advocate for LGBTQIA+, polyamorous, and nontraditional families, usually in the form of mediation. They also help with second parent adoptions, assisting the non-biological parent of a child in gaining the same rights as the biological parent. Like many legal processes, the road to adoption can be long, expensive, and arduous, which is why Andy started Chosen Family Law in 2018, in partnership with Diana Adams, the organization’s executive director. A nonprofit, Chosen Family Law specializes in public and professional education, family building, immigration support, adoptions, name and gender marker changes, and more. Their website lists some ongoing projects, such as the Platonic Parent Project that aims to help non-traditional and non-romantic platonic partners raise children as a unit, or the Poly Families Project that provides support for polyamorous families and partners with formation support, legal advocacy and consultation, and co-parenting agreements.

“When I talk with families about protecting their relationships, there are two kinds of problems that require different approaches: intrafamilial and extrafamilial issues,” Andy tells me. “Extrafamilial as in the institutions that the family interacts with as it navigates the world—such as schools, hospitals, borders, cops, and social workers. It's about smoothing these interactions and ensuring they unfold safely. Intrafamilial issues pertain to the agreements, promises, commitments, and plans made within the family. This includes assessing how well these agreements are working and addressing any challenges that arise when they aren't.”

When I walk into Andy’s home, one of the first things I see is a dry erase board, detailing who’s in charge of which weekly chores. I’m greeted by one of their partners, Cal, and Toby. Moments later, another family member, Charlie, who just finished arguing his thesis, “A Survey of How Much Education Medical Students Receive in Trans Healthcare (Not Much),” comes running up the three wooden front steps. Andy and Cal hurry out, and the three embrace. These people bundled in their shared joy over one partner’s accomplishment, Toby yelping on his hind legs, eager to join in the celebration. Andy offers me coffee, at first with dairy-free chocolate ice cream in place of milk, but then Cal reminds them that their mother is coming into town for a few days, so there’s actually creamer in the fridge after all. Speaking of their mother, Cal asks, where will we be chatting? They want to clean in preparation for her arrival, but don’t want to be in our way. Charlie, meanwhile, leaves us to “have some lunch and maybe nap for, like, three hours?” and promises to reconvene for dinner. 

So passes a regular afternoon at Andy’s home. There’s nothing inherently “out of the ordinary,” and yet, it feels distinctly radical. In America today, any family structure outside of the nuclear family is considered by many to be radical. In recent years, the country has seen the rise of authoritarian and extreme sentiment of the political Right and the vilification of the “non-traditional,” which tends to be anything that falls outside of white, cisgender, heterosexual, patriarchal norms. That is part of what makes Andy’s work at CFLC so vital.

 “I think it's different for queer kids now, because they have this lifeline to the broader queer community,” Andy says. “They can go on Google and be like, ‘Does anyone else feel this way?’ And connect with a whole world of people that also feel how they do. None of that was available when I was growing up. I feel that there’s a big difference because of that, in the experience that kids have access to that knowledge. It can't really be overstated.”

Born and raised in the isolated, homogeneity of  rural New Hampshire, where they spent nearly two decades thinking there was something deeply wrong with them, Andy only became aware of the queer identity in college at Skidmore, where they studied linguistics. It would be years after that, when they moved to New York City, when they discovered their trans identity. 

The visibility of queer and trans folks today allows people to live authentically in a community with other people like them. There’s safety and power in numbers. Yet that visibility has been weaponized by GOP politicians, right-wing operatives and well-funded dark money groups. These individuals and organizations highlight queer and trans people living their lives, out loud and in public, as evidence of decaying moral standards. They promote the discredited notion that being LGBTQIA+ is a “chosen lifestyle.” 

In recent years, anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric from the Right has become more extreme and reactionary, aimed at fueling visceral emotional responses and moral panic—particularly around children. Republicans like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene have suggested that LGBTQIA+ inclusivity in schools is “grooming” children, a term used to imply sexual predation. Greene and others have framed access to life-saving gender-affirming care as the mutilation of children, despite studies showing that surgery is rarely, if ever, performed on minors. 

The Right’s answer to these supposed attacks on children is simple: Elect Republicans willing to pass restrictive, discriminatory policies that hurt LGBTQIA+ Americans. Take Florida’s notorious “Don’t Say Gay” law, for example, which prohibited instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in school before ninth grade—allegedly to give parents more say in the education of their children. Critics noted however, that the legislation, which served as a model for other Republican-led states, was damaging to LGBTQIA+ students.

Andy thinks about how fear and ignorance fuels intolerance quite often—in their identity as a queer and trans person, in their work as a divorce mediator, and also as an anti-Zionist Jew. Through the Boston Workers Circle, a Center for Jewish Culture and Social Justice, Andy co-hosted an event called, “Faces of Oppression; Faces of Liberation: Untangling the Intersections of Antisemitism, White Supremacy, and Transphobia.” The four-part series focused on the intersectionality of the trans experience and the Jewish diaspora, how white supremacy truly works to oppress every single one of us, and how Zionism is that white supremacy at work. 

“The evaluative mechanism [of information] is about how it makes you feel. The solution that I've come to is to go to the root and think about what the actual anxieties are that are being played on,” Andy says. “What Zionism presents to Jews in the diaspora– the emotions and the anxieties and the feelings of isolation and alienation, those narratives are exacerbated and exploited to make Zionism work. [The series] was about addressing those fears and emotions at their roots.” 

Continuing on the theme of disinformation, Andy brings up the philosophical theory about the circles of moral concerns—the closest circle is the self, the next pertains to the family, and then the final encompasses other people. They explain that this is why we see so many disinformation campaigns about LGBTQIA+ rights equating to the endangerment of children and the loss of family.  Andy explains that these tactics promote fear of people who fall outside of the traditional and facilitate the continuation of systems of oppression. Andy seeks to remind us that what we view as radical is just ripping holes in the veil of systemic oppression. 

“The word ‘radical’ is etymologically related to the word ‘root,’” Andy says. “When we talk about radicalization, it’s about trying to go to the root of things and not just looking at the superficial circumstances. And part of that is asking, ‘Who benefits?’ Which in fancy terms is ‘cui bono,’ a Latin phrase used in law, because, you know, lawyers like to sound fancy. The reason that the people who are in power aren't changing the things that we want changed is because they're benefiting from them, right? If they weren't benefiting from them, they would change them. The invitation that radicalism provides, I think, is to understand the benefit and to make it less worth it for those in power.” 

They go on to say that taking down walls is important, necessary even, but doing so without knowing what’s on the other side negates the dismantling efforts. If we don’t know the situation as a whole, at its core, at its root, then we risk the very same thing going up in its place. Radical, revolutionary efforts beg this interrogation of us. 

Andy’s entire being seems to encapsulate this radicalism and liberation. Their home is named The Rêve, short for “the revolution.” They host several events throughout the year, all geared towards queer and trans people and their families. Andy points to different parts of the property: the pool where trans bodies are allowed to relax, float, and swim without cisgendered-gaze; the small RV set back in some trees that they had purchased off of Craigslist during the pandemic to help an immuno-compromised trans elder get out of an unsafe living situation;the path behind the house that leads to a fire pit and 17 acres of land. Though it’s just Andy, Toby, and me on the porch, it’s easy to picture queer and trans people and their kids romping around the property, the sounds of laughter in the air. 

I am suddenly aware of the smell of the Rose of Sharon, a sort of guest all its own with every bit of joy, every bit of healing, and the promise of liberation tangled in the roots.