Rick X. Hoops is a graduate student pursuing a master’s in arts and cultural leadership. They also work as the Schochet Graduate Associate at the Gender and Sexuality Center (GSC) on campus and as the Youth Programs Music Director at the Minnesota Opera. They identify as a transmasculine nonbinary person and are queer.
“I think where I struggled to find queer joy was in the environments I was living in. Then, when the pandemic happened, I ended up moving in with three other queer people in a little house, and it just quickly became this community where you didn’t have to prove yourself or your queerness. I had lived with someone for a while who kind of questioned my queerness, and I think I found the most joy from making a home with people who didn’t need me to look a certain way. I don’t owe anyone androgyny, and there’s a lot of pressure as a transmasculine nonbinary person who hasn’t undergone surgical methods of transition really. There’s a lot of pressure to look a certain way, and I didn’t experience that in this living environment. It was just very unconditional acceptance, and that wasn’t something I had really experienced too much before. So that whole two-year living situation had a lot of queer joy in it just because there was no pressure associated with needing to present or act a certain way to be considered valid.
I’m definitely part of the GSC community as a staff member. That is pretty major to be in a work environment where again, there is like zero pressure to look or be a certain way. If you are presenting feminine or masculine, that continuum, you can be anywhere on that continuum on any given day, and the rest of the staff at the GSC aren’t going to be questioning you.”
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview conducted by Marena Reich.