Raffi Freedman Gurspan

Personal life

Freedman-Gurspan was born to a Lenca family living in Intibucá, Honduras on May 3, 1987. The Lenca are the indigenous people of western Honduras and eastern El Salvador. Unable to be raised by her birth family, she was adopted as an infant by an American Jewish couple and grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts. Freedman-Gurspan self-identifies as an indigenous Central American, a Latina and as Jewish.

Education

Freedman-Gurspan attended the Edward Devotion School and Brookline High School in Brookline, Massachusetts.

As a teenager, she developed an interest in Norway and Scandinavia, and went to Skogfjorden, a Norwegian language immersion summer camp in Bemidji, Minnesota run by the Concordia Language Villages.

Freedman-Gurspan attended St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. During her junior year, she studied abroad at the University of Oslo Faculty of Law where she took classes in international law with a focus on human rights and gender equality. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Norwegian with a Concentration in Nordic Studies from St. Olaf College in 2009. She is a proficient Norwegian speaker.

Career

After college, Freedman-Gurspan interned with the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition (MTPC), where she focused on legislative and policy matters until May, 2011. She also assisted a women's studies professor at Boston University from 2009 until 2011.

In January 2010, Freedman-Gurspan was hired by Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone of Somerville, Massachusetts to be the city's LGBT Liaison. It was through her work with MTPC and in Somerville that she met former Massachusetts State Representative Carl Sciortino of Medford and Somerville. Sciortino was one of the lead sponsors at the time of legislation in the legislature to expand state civil rights protections to transgender residents.

In July 2011, Freedman-Gurspan became Sciortino's legislative aide, and was the first openly transgender legislative staffer in the Massachusetts State House. She played an instrumental role in helping Sciortino pass the transgender civil rights bill in November 2011. Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick signed the bill into law by January 2012. Freedman-Gurspan worked as Sciortino's staffer until he retired from the Massachusetts House of Representatives in the spring of 2014.

In July 2014, Freedman-Gurspan was hired by the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) and moved to Washington, DC. She worked as NCTE's Policy Advisor, and focused on matters for transgender people of color and those living in poverty. Her work included criminal justice and incarceration reform, immigration detention conditions, housing and homeless shelter policies, and sustainable economic development opportunities for transgender people in the United States.

On August 18, 2015, Freedman-Gurspan was hired by President Barack Obama as an Outreach and Recruitment Director in the Presidential Personnel Office at the White House. She became the first openly transgender person in history to be a member of staff at the White House.

In 2016 it was announced that President Barack Obama had appointed Freedman-Gurspan as the White House’s primary LGBT liaison, making her the first openly transgender person in the role. She served in this role at the White House until January 6, 2017.

On January 17, 2017, President Obama named Freedman-Gurspan as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, the Board of Trustees of the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. She will serve for a term of 5 years.