In an emotional short film, New York actor and activist Joslyn DeFreece is getting candid about the obstacles she faced on her journey to living her truth as a transgender woman.
“Pieces of Me,” produced by PFLAG in honor of Transgender Day of Visibility, pairs present-day interviews with DeFreece and her family members with archival clips of her adolescent and teen years in her hometown of Omaha, Nebraska.
In a snippet from the film, DeFreece, whose acting credits include “The Whitlock Academy” and “Strange Angel,” recalls meeting Laverne Cox for the first time and describes the “Orange Is the New Black” and “Inventing Anna” actor as “my first trans friend.”
“It was the first time I’d met another trans person, a person like me, who was nerding out on the same stuff that I was,” DeFreece says in the clip below. “To have someone that I could sit here and talk about the things that I was going to school for, and someone that would come over and sit at my apartment and, you know, talk about boys, talk about life, and then be equally as passionate about her career — it was everything.”
Watch a clip from “Pieces of Me”:
“Pieces of Me” is written, directed and produced by Los Angeles-based filmmaker Nick Oceano-Armendariz. In an interview with HuffPost, Oceano-Armendariz said he and DeFreece hope to “help create empathy and a humanization of trans people” at a time when LGBTQ+ rights are under immense threat in many conservative regions across the U.S.
“There are so many stories right now of ‘trans trauma’ ― but truly, we wanted people to really understand that when trans and nonbinary folks are loved and affirmed for who they are, they thrive,” said the director, who first approached PFLAG about producing a film with DeFreece a year ago. “I hope that by sharing a human story ― from a person and storyteller like Joslyn, who was so wanting to be honest and vulnerable in this piece ― we’re going to reach some folks who maybe can’t get this message any other way.”
Elsewhere in “Pieces of Me,” DeFreece says she hopes her experiences will resonate with “any young person that feels misunderstood, that feels wrong about who they are.”
“I’m passionate about telling my story because I needed to hear my story when I was younger,” she says. “I really needed that, and it wasn’t there.”
Watch “Pieces of Me” here.