Author Jennifer Finney Boylan Delivers Keynote Address for Queer Week
Muhlenberg College kicks off Queer Week programming with “A Life in Two Genders: An Evening with Jennifer Finney Boylan.”
Wednesday, March 19, 2014 01:13 PM
This event, sponsored by Muhlenberg Students for Queer Advocacy (SQuAd), the office of multicultural life, and the office of the President, will be held on March 24 at 7:30 p.m. in the Seegers Union Event Space. It is free and open to the public.
Boylan is a widely praised author and a professor at Colby College, where she has taught in the English department for 25 years. She is an activist for LGBT people in general, and trans men and women in particular, through her writing as well as through her involvement as a director of GLAAD. She supports the expansion of our scientific understanding of gender through her service on the Board of Trustees of the Kinsey Institute. She advocates for storytellers of all stripes, in part through her support of the PEN American Center, and, above all, through her work with her students at Colby College. She was born in Valley Forge, Pa., and she grew up in Newtown Square and Devon, Pa.
She is the author of 13 books– three novels, a collection of short stories, three memoirs and six young adult books, four of them written under a pseudonym. Her most recent published work is Stuck in the Middle with You, a memoir about the differences between fatherhood and motherhood, published in April 2013. Stuck in the Middle holds that “having a father who became a mother has helped my sons, in turn, become better men.” She’s Not There, published by Doubleday in 2003, was one of the first bestselling works by a transgendered American; until 2001 she published under the name James Boylan. She’s Not There was released in a new and expanded edition in April 2013.
Boylan has been a frequent guest on a number of national television and radio programs, including three visits to the Oprah Winfrey Show. She has also appeared on the Larry King Show, The Today Show, the Barbara Walters Special, and was the subject of a documentary on CBS News’ 48 Hours. She has also appeared on a wide range of local and syndicated television shows, as well as NPR’s Marketplace and the Diane Rehm show. In 2007, she played herself on two episodes of ABC’s soap opera All My Children.
Her nonfiction has appeared on the op/ed pages of the New York Times, in GQ magazine, Allure and Glamour. She is also an ongoing contributor to Conde Nast Traveler magazine.
Muhlenberg SQuAd, a student-run organization, strives to be inclusive of all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. The group aims to: foster a comfortable campus environment for LGBTQ students and their allies; create a physical safe space (the Pride House) which welcomes everyone and challenges heteronormativity; work as an active member of Multicultural Life, exploring intersectionality and confronting power differences within their own organization; provide academic and social activities for LGBTQ students and their allies; and advocate for political and social change with relevance to the LGBTQ community.
