Transgender advocate and activist Jessica Lynn will bring her message of acceptance for gender non-conforming people to Illinois State University at 5 p.m. Wednesday, September 26, in Schroeder Hall, room 130.

The talk is part of the Speaker Series at Illinois State University and QUEERTalks, and is free and open to the public.

Lynn is a world-renowned speaker. Her experiences as a transgender woman and parent led her to dedicate her life to spreading awareness and acceptance for gender non-conforming communities around the world.

A Kinsey Institute global ambassador at Indiana University, Lynn is the founder of the social movement called The Butterfly Project. The project aims to eliminate the ignorance and discrimination faced by LGBTQ+ communities around the world through the friendly and open sharing of a diverse array of personal stories connected to gender and intersecting identities, as well as spreading information about the gender spectrum.

In her travels, Lynn dedicates herself to meeting people of identities all over the gender spectrum and learning of their experiences, all the while perpetuating the belief that friendly, non-judgmental conversations about the gender spectrum are the most powerful tool in the fight for awareness and acceptance. Her work has taken her to India, Poland, Turkey, the Ukraine, Croatia, Spain, and across England, including Oxford and Cambridge.  

Lynn is a Stonewall School Role Model and a speaker to the medical community by request of the National Health Service England.

The talk is supported by PRIDE, Women’s and Gender Studies, and the Office of the President. Find more about Lynn at on her website.