Rikki Swin

The Rikki Swin Collection contains:

• The Rikki Swin Institute (RSI)
• Ari Kane | Fantasia Fair
• The International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE) 
  
• Virginia Prince

Rikki Swin was born in Chicago, 1947. She was an expert in polymer construction and design. She worked as an entrepreneur at Tec Air, Inc., founded in 1965 by her father, Richard Swin Sr. It is a manufacturing business that specializes in plastic injection moulding. The business grew to annual revenues of US$20 million, co-owned by Rikki and Richard from 1970-1999, until it was sold.

She founded the Rikki Swin Institute (RSI) in Chicago in 2001. Rikki Swin has lived in Victoria, BC, Canada, and currently resides on San Juan Island, Washington, USA.

Rikki Swin Institute

The Rikki Swin Institute: Gender Education, Research, Library and Archives (RSI) dedicated to transgender research and education. It opened to the public on March 22, 2001, to coincide with the 15th Annual Conference of the International Foundation for Gender Education. The Institute closed in December 2004.

The Institute had four objectives: the housing of a library and archives; conference co-sponsorship; digital video education; and research. Archival collections were purchased from Ari Kane, Betty Ann Lind, the International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE), and Virginia Prince.

UVic Transgender Archives holds:

• RSI administrative records
• conference and convention materials
• correspondence
• newspaper clippings
• reports
• research materials
• the archival collections purchased from Ari Kane, Betty Ann Lind, the International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE), and Virginia Prince

Research material includes approximately 300 completed RSI Transperson Surveys (access to confidential and personal information of identifiable individuals is subject to a research agreement to protect personal privacy).  

As the images depict below, we also hold a complete set of all the original photographs found in Harry Benjamin's seminal 1966 book, The Transsexual Phenomenon.

View material from the RSI collection