Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A transgender advocate now starring in the "Orange is the New Black" television series will speak March 27 at Mississippi State.
"Ain't I a Woman: My Journey to Womanhood" will be the title of the Gender Studies Lecture Series address by actress Laverne Cox.
Free and open to all, her 6 p.m. presentation in the Colvard Student Union's Bill Foster Ballroom will serve as the keynote address of the university's Women's History Month celebration.
A Mobile, Ala., native and graduate of New York's Marymount Manhattan College, Cox will draw from her personal history to examine how race, class and gender intersect to affect the lives of trans women of color.
In the popular Nexflix comedy-drama series, she portrays "Sophia Burset," a transgender woman serving time for credit card fraud.
Among professional accomplishments other than acting, Cox has produced and co-hosted the VH1 makeover television series "TRANSform Me." Her show was nominated for outstanding reality programming honors by GLAAD, the national lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender media advocacy organization.
In addition to MSU's Gender Studies Program, her campus appearance is co-sponsored by the Office of the Provost; College of Arts and Sciences; Safe Zone; Holmes Cultural Diversity Center; sociology, communication and recreational sports departments; African American Studies; president's commissions on the status of Women and Minorities; Spectrum; Student Counseling Services; and Delta Omega Lambda.
For more information, contact Gender Studies at 662-325-2355 or www.genderstudies.msstate.edu.
Information about MSU is available at www.msstate.edu.