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07 March 2019 | Story Rulanzen Martin | Photo Rulanzen Martin
CGAS staff with Jessica Lynn
From left: Ankia Bradfield, Sihle Salman, Jessica Lynn, Dr Nadine Lake, programme director, Gender Studies, and Dr Stephanie Cawood, director of CGAS after the talk.

For Jessica Lynn, a transgender activist, referencing the Butterfly to tell her journey, is the perfect metaphor to raise awareness of transgender issues. The Centre for Gender and Africa studies (CGAS) at the University of the Free State (UFS) hosted Lynn at a seminar titled, The Butterfly Project.

The CGAS invited Lynn in an effort to educate and inform students of her own experience as a parent living as a transgender woman. She is a global ambassador at the Kinsey Institute.

Coping mechanisms to escape reality

Born Jeffery Alan Butterworth in 1965, Lynn has become a world-renowned, dynamic and hard-hitting transgender activist. Lynn started her seminar off with: “Who here knows someone that is part of the transgender community?” It was evident that not many people know someone who is transgender. “In the United States only 16% of the population knows someone who is transgender,” she said.

“Everybody has their own story, just like I am only one of the 1.4 million transgender stories in the United States (US).” As a child of English immigrants to the US she was raised as a boy. “At a very young age I wanted to be girl,” she says, “but in 1969 it was not something that was spoken about..”

She started doing photography, painting and sports to stop the feelings she had to become a girl. She became obsessed with painting. “When I am painting that eagle I became that eagle in order to escape my reality.” She came out to her children as transgender during December 2009. She fully transitioned in 2010.

Lynn is the mother of three boys and was married to their biological mother. A botched Texas court restricted her access to her youngest child and to this day she has not been able to see her son.

Transgender discussions on rise in South Africa

“Transgender discussions have been less salient than conversations around homosexuality in South Africa,” said Dr Nadine Lake, programme director for Gender Studies at the UFS.  “But it is clear that raising awareness around transgender issues is starting to take more ground.”

Transgender identity and trans-body rights emerged during the #RhodesMustFall movement in 2015. “It was university students that were primarily driving the transformation agenda,” said Dr Lake.

The seminar on 20 February 2019 was an emotional, explosive and honest narrative of Jessica Lynn cocooning from Jeffrey Alan Butterworth to the phenomenal women she is today.

 

News Archive

Odeion: Fun concert
2007-09-21

Fun concert!
4 October 2007
Odeion
19:30

The Department of Music presents a fun concert on Thursday, 4 October 2007, 19:30 in the Odeion. After several requests and excellent feedback from our concert goers, the Department has decided to make these lighter concerts a regular event and is presenting this one for FREE! Besides the following items, we have a lot of surprises in store.

Three pieces for cello and piano:
Boccherini: Rondo
Gluck: Melody
Popper: Tarentella
Michael Haller (cello), Albie van Schalkwyk (piano)

Francis Poulenc: Babar the elephant
Hanna van Niekerk (narrator), Albie van Schalkwyk (piano)

Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata for violin and piano, Op. 24 (“Spring Sonata”)
John Wille (violin), Nicol Viljoen (piano)

Scott Joplin: Three Piano Rags: Maple Leaf Rag, Magnetic Rag & Easy Winners
Albie van Schalkwyk & Nicol Viljoen (pianos)

Sergei Rachmaninoff: Waltz & Romance for piano, six hands
Anchen Froneman, Petro Engelbrecht, Ronella van Rensburg (piano)

Noel Stockton and Nicol Viljoen at two pianos!

Bookings:
Book your free ticket now at 051 - 401 2504. Only 372 seats available!
 

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