Jennifer Finney Boylan Honored & More

Jennifer Finney Boylan, the first best-selling transgender author in the U.S. whose writings, teachings and activism have significantly illuminated and articulated the transgender experience talks with Emmy Winner Charlotte Robinson host of OUTTAKE VOICES™ about being honored by GLAD (Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders) with the Spirit of Justice Award on October 16th at Boston Marriott Copley Place in Boston, Massachusetts. Jennifer Finney Boylan is the author of the best-selling memoir “She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders” and a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. A novelist, memoirist and short story writer, she is also a nationally known advocate for transgender rights. She sits on the board of trustees of the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction as well as serving as the National co-chair of the board of GLAAD, the LGBT media monitoring organization. Recently Jennifer had an ongoing role on the groundbreaking E TV Network Reality Show “I Am Cait” and serves as a consultant on the Amazon Emmy and Golden Globe award winning show “Transparent”. We talked to Jennifer about being honored by GLAD with their Spirit of Justice Award and her spin on our LGBT issues.

When asked what her personal commitment is to LGBT civil rights Boylan stated, “It’s what I’ve given my life to. After raising my children and being married to my wife I feel like LGBT rights are achieving the goal of a fair world. Especially for transgender people, it’s the mission that I have undertaken. Look, things went relatively well for me here in this little state of Maine in my town of Belgrade Lakes. I didn’t lose my family, I didn’t lose my job and I was able in fact to publish a book about it and tell that story and tell it the way I wanted it told. My experience especially in the first decade of this century may well have been atypical. The stories we tend to hear of transgender people are often the other kinds of stories. Particularly when we talk about transgender people of color, we’re talking about people who are on the receiving end of violence, who are likely to be homeless. All across our community you hear stories of people who have suffered loses and abuse of one kind or another and it’s intolerable and it has to stop. So I’m hoping to use my power as a storyteller to bring about that end. It can be a frustrating end and discouraging fight sometimes because there’s so much work to do and there’s so much hatred out there; but in my own experience there’s also love and understanding as well and what I would hope is true for me can be true for everyone.”

Jennifer Finney Boylan is currently the Anna Quindlen Writer in Residence at Barnard College of Columbia University. Before coming to Barnard she was Professor of English for 25 years at Colby College in Maine. As an advocate for transgender equality she has addressed the National Press Club, been the keynote or plenary speaker at gender conventions nationwide and spoken on hundreds of college campuses including Harvard, Yale, Cornell, Columbia, Barnard, Wesleyan, Amherst, Duke and Dartmouth. Jennifer Finney Boylan will accept the Award at the 16th Annual Spirit of Justice Award Dinner at the Boston Marriott Copley Place at 110 Huntington Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts on October 16th and then on Saturday, October 17th a Reading and Conversation with Jennifer Finney Boylan takes place at Danger! Awesome Event Space at 645 Massachusetts Ave at 11A in Cambridge, MA.
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