Meet Rizi

Rizi Xavier Timane is a female-to-male transgender Entertainer, a licensed therapist (LCSW) and Certified Trans-sensitivity/Diversity Trainer who advocates for transgender rights. He is currently the Associate Director of the transgender health program at St John’s well child and family clinic, the oldest and largest provider of transgender specific health care in the United States. He was born and raised in Nigeria, West Africa. Rizi realized at age eight that he was a boy living in a girl's body and approached his parents about this dilemma. His parents, converts to fundamentalist Christianity, responded with attempted exorcisms and other reparative therapies that sought to "pray the trans away." This rejection and disapproval carried over to the community-at-large as well as peers at school making Rizi the victim of bullying and harassment driving him to years of alcohol and drug abuse and suicidal ideation.

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