Arhanghela, Romania (she/her)

18 September 2025

My name is Arhangela, which stands for female archangel, and it's also a play on my actual name, which is Angel. So, Angel and I'm from Bucharest. Well, actually I'm from Sibiu, but I live in both Sibiu and Bucharest.

Okay, can we talk about a little bit about your youth? Do you remember your youth when you were a kid?

I totally remember my youth. This is where everything started for me, I was always, I grew up wearing dresses, shoes, jewelleries. My grandma still has them. She kept them for all these years, and I also grew up in a Gypsy music Roma bar, and that was, I think that explains it all [laughs] who I am now.

Can you tell me more about that Roma bar and your Roma environment? How was it?

It was great, I mean this is since I can remember my grandpa had this great bar on like two stories, very wide, it was like the greatest one in the area and we used to always have music, have gatherings with people with crazy clothing. So, everything was that, everything was a party. My childhood was a party with great clothes. I was a spoiled child [laughs] so I think that also explains a lot of things!

So yeah, it, it was a great, I had a great childhood. I enjoyed it. Everybody supported me. I was doing art ever since I was a kid, I was drawing, painting, playing with stuff.

Do you remember like some period in your life that you were like oh, I think I'm not like other people?

Yeah, I totally do. I mean, I don't remember a period in my life when I wasn't thinking about that. Like, I've always had it in me. But I mean, even since kindergarten, like, I knew it, I always knew it, and that also explains a lot because I'm so confident and I always knew that. My family, I think somehow, they knew it because, I told you, they always let me play, around my house I was wearing dresses, heels, even in my childhood, a lot of jewelleries and that, that was it. I always knew it.

Did you have like, because of that, problems with Roma community or white community in your city?

Not really to be honest, because at the time my family was influential so they wouldn't fuck with their kids with their favourite grandchild [laughs] stuff, and then I, I never had problems like that because I was…and then when I grew up, I grew up into my artist persona. So, everybody was like, oh, she's doing art, she's crazy, but mind her, that's how she is, so I just grew up into it so…that was fun because I never got to deal with things [laughs].

But – okay, you are now grown up, in your art persona and everything – but do you feel like sometimes like you're getting discriminated against because of your Roma heritage, not because you are LGBTQ, but because of your Roma heritage? 

Lately, which means last year, I didn't experience that so often because I'm blonde now and, and really my style changed a lot, and people don't really think of me as dad, even though most of my life I've been so proud of it. Even since childhood, I've been so proud of it, and I made it, a lot, my thing. But now I just evolved into not being, not labelling myself as my Roma heritage or my trans, transhood. So, now I just, I don't think I've been discriminated [against] for that. But yeah, I've, I've experienced it, of course, when…especially when I get to wear like traditional fashion. I've had that happen. We were filming something for HBO and I had this traditional costume and I went to the corner store near the set and all the guards followed me. Like, they weren't following anyone but me because I had this long braid and this long skirt. And yeah, but nowadays, no, I didn't experience that so often. But I feel like also it's because people are evolving and they're normalising more as, as Roma people are around them. They know they can never get rid of us [laughs]. 

But in your own community, because we heard about problems being Roma in the LGBT community, the LGBT community also sometimes – how to say it – cast out if you're Roma. Did you experience it or no?

It wasn't more like… I wasn't like excluded or anything. It was a shock, but it also was like something people were expecting because I've always done crazy shit. So like, “oh, she's a girl, OK, crazy, but like still expected from her.” And no, they didn't cast me out. Actually, I've had people since childhood even they're like so proud of me for doing that. And yeah…

I’m speaking about in the LGBT community here in Romania, did they cast you out? Or not cast you out like they had a problem because you were Roma?

No, because you know that I, I wouldn't go around with people who had a problem with that, and if they would, I would confront them. So, I mean, I've had micro racist…hearing, like micro racist shit, things [laughs] but yeah, I've confronted them always or called them out and made their life a living hell. But yeah...

Can you give me like a comparison: how it is to be a trans woman, or trans man, in Bucharest like five years ago, six years ago and now? Is there a…can you see the, like… maybe people are getting more tolerant, or no? Or the community is like, you're more visible or…?

Well, people are getting more tolerable or they're becoming more accustomed with the trans people. because we also have a huge visibility online here, especially there are other girls on platforms doing live streams and things, but, as I was talking to Ana earlier, that doesn't do it any justice because they're, most of them are just reinforcing stereotypes about us. So yeah, with this visibility, the tolerance has raised, but also the stereotypes have raised. So, it's just like a balance.

I like to not make it a thing about me and people I encounter. I just treat them as normal, and if they treat me as normal, OK, but usually I don't…I did not have bad experiences about me being trans to be honest. Not even when I was wearing crazy things, not even when I was wearing boring things, and just going to the stores I didn't have crazy bad experiences other than just name calling. But all the girls have that like, “oh you’re a whore, you're a bitch, you're wearing heels” or whatever.

You go from safe places to safe places or you are trying to make safe places, new safe places?

Yeah, I get it. Well, to be honest, this kind of safe place thing, I think it's just for all minorities of awesome sorts and the way, the need, for us to have a community and just gather around each other…and it's also because you usually know those people there and it's more, like, comfortable, more fun. But yeah, I've went some places where they didn't feel like, safe, and they ended up being safe. It's just like another stereotype that we're reinforcing with them. But usually people are very chill about it or have been.

Can you talk a little bit about your art? When did you start? What was your first medium?

Sure, I'm going to talk about a lot about that [laughs].

I've just always played around with drawing, ever since I remember it was like also my escape, and I loved that… I just discovered it last month that my father kept all of my drawing because in… even in like middle school, I used to have in my notebooks drawings instead of what I should write, and I ripped them out and I put them in one place, and my dad still has them. And I was drawing these exaggerated women with crazy costumes, and then when I went to 1st grade, the teacher – I was doing private English courses – and the teacher in the room in Sibiu asked me, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” You know, the normal question, the usual one for first grade schoolers, and I was like, “oh, a fashion designer.” And she didn't even know what that meant [laughs]. So, she had to wait for the other teacher, and that's when it started for me: Oh, I want to do fashion and I want to do something regarding this, and I just trained myself to think I want to do fashion and fashion design. And then I went into painting, into the High School of Fine Arts there. I got into painting, into sculpture, clay, wood…I did graphics, I did embroidery. So, I did a lot of things. So I decided that I want to go for fashion. And then I came here to Bucharest in 2018 when I was 18 years old to pursue a career in fashion. I signed up for the Fine Arts University to study fashion design, and then I realised, “God, I don't want to be a seamstress and a designer.” Like, I'm not fit for that. It's a crazy man's work, which I appreciate, and I love working with designers, but I love my art to be more storytelling, and it's… it was way, way more comfortable for me to use different mediums.

And then I got into theatre [laughs] and I've worked with the girls then, I've had three theatre plays in four different years, one of which had the greatest prize in the theatre community here. And now that got boring. So [laughs] so I'm now doing music and I just love finding different mediums for me to express myself, because I've always explained to people who don't understand and they think I’m just insane, that it's just like learning a language and like you're learning this language and you're trying to express your yourself through it, and when you do, yeah, OK, you have it, but now you want to learn another language to express yourself and to bond with people who speak the same language. 

This is my question, next question, about your art…like, when you express yourself, a lot of times – like I know because this I work with art and I’m an artist, blah, blah, blah – it's sometimes, it's therapeutical. Sometimes it's work, you know, sometimes it's work, you have to do it, like, fuck it, but those times, you know those small times that you speak with your child inside yourself, with the kid in yourself, do you sometimes now because you're now Arhangela, do you speak with Angel, the kid?

With the small Arhangela? I feel like I'm a slave to that spoiled ass bitch kid [laughs] and yes, I feel like everything came from that, like I'm just fulfilling her wishes. So I'm just like being the hero she needed. So that's it.

Oh, and I also wrote a book [laughs] I forgot to tell you that about my art mediums. And I produce shows, so I do a lot of shit [laughs]. But yes, I feel like everything comes from that, and I feel like it, I don't know, I'm just speaking for everybody, but I feel like that's what it's like for everybody because you're just trying to fulfil your wishes as an adult, and if you're not doing that…I mean, that's how I do it, and this is how I roll.

Do you think your kid in you is proud of you?

Yes. But she also hates me, and she wants to be me, but she will never be me [laughs].

How do you manage like those kinds of days, like those kind of like…that the critique from the kid is too strong? What do you do? Do you chill out? Do you ride? Do you just cry out? Do you…?

Well, I love those days because without   them, I feel like there's no evolution in me. So, I appreciate those days, even if then I might not feel like appreciating them, but I feel like this is the inner work we have to do with ourselves. So, I just sit, I have a bunch of time – I take as much time as I need to process everything – and that's like a huge privilege that I have, that I can get to do that and work on myself and realise why…why do I feel that? Why do I feel I need to work on that? Why do I need to do all these things to fulfil me? But I also, like, enjoy these things and they are a way of fulfilment for me.

I don't know how to explain it.

Yeah, yeah.

Where does the strength come from?

Well, I don't have anything else to compare it because I've always had this shadow work and the strength bitch, but I don't know the strength is I…I don't know where the strength comes from. I'm just a witch and I'm not going to share all my secrets with you on this microphone being recorded [laughs]. So, yes, I, I think it's just a way of living life, like everybody finds their strength somewhere to go through, and go for their dreams. I don't know how to explain it. I'm not going to share my unholy secrets here.

Can you tell me for you what makes a human being a human being?

Hard to answer that since I'm not a human being, but I can appropriate the human culture and say that human beings are complicated and I don't know what makes a human being, to be honest. I feel like just being… because even though I portray this mean bitch, I always like to understand people and be nice for them, especially the ones in need. I'm like, fuck it, you know? Once the glam is off, I like to…I feel like it's so important to view yourself and act as a human being and not be driven by ego. Even though I know how to turn it the fuck up, I know how to also turn it the fuck down and just be genuine and be understanding with everybody.

Can you tell me like what people, if they don't know trans community and the Roma trans community, should know about the Roma trans community?

I feel like one should be really – it's also attached to your previous question – that we're fucking humans. We're not just a bunch of sexy whores. Okay. we are sexy whores, but we're not just that. We also have to go do the same errands as everybody, pay the same shit at the bank, go and deal with the pipe boy that has to repair our house, and we have the same problems within our families with like sick people. We have to be there, or care… we have to take care of them, and we're just like human beings, like being trans doesn't make you less of a human being, but more of a super-human being.

Do you have something to say to your future self in 20 years? If you can write you know, something to…?

First of all, I will say you're welcome, bitch [laughs]. I'm going through everything, and I'm working on everything I'm working just so you can be comfortable! So, I hope you are, and I hope you're a sexy horror continuously. You're still that bitch and that you were, are, and will be, and I just want to say also… not thank you, because you should say thank you to me that I'm doing this now. I just hope she's great. She's shining even brighter than I already am, even if I know I'm not sure if that's possible, and that's it. I hope she's a sexy granny!

 

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