Frances Griffey
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“I was born with a birth defect.”
A tall blonde woman stood front and center, a loose black blouse and tight pencil skirt clinging to her body. She balanced effortlessly on heels at least four inches tall. You might never have known she was born biologically male.
Her name used to be Jeffrey. But since childhood, she’d always wanted to be a girl. Now, she has a new name and a new identity — she’s who she was always been meant to be.
President of Your True Gender — a transgender-friendly organization based on The Central Coast — Jessica Lynn held nothing back in sharing her life story with a small audience in the Julian A. McPhee University Union (UU) on Thursday evening.
Lynn has not only experienced a sex change, but also death, addiction, depression, children and a custody battle. The challenges thrust upon Lynn seem never-ending, but she’s a survivor.
“It was more than just a transgender event,” psychology sophomore Kristen Kowalczyk said. “It was about all struggles of life. And basically everything that could have happened to a person, happened to her.”
During her presentation, Lynn described what it was like growing up in a body she didn’t feel comfortable in. As a child and teenager, she became obsessed with activities like soccer, photography and stamp and bug collecting. Later her obsession revolved around alcohol and drugs. Engaging in these activities took her mind off the relentless gnawing desire to become a member of the opposite sex.
“It was a way to escape,” Lynn said.
And as she got older, her yearning to be a woman didn’t subside.
“I wanted to be a girl more and more,” Lynn said.
Lynn divulged the personal details and struggles of her transition in the hopes of making people more open-minded. Her passion for educating others about what it means to be transgender is phenomenal. She said she wishes she could speak full-time and is willing to spread awareness anyhow, anywhere.
“My goal is to change the way people think of us,” Lynn said.
According to Kowalczyk, Lynn is accomplishing that goal. Kowalczyk said she walked away from the lecture with a new perspective and better understanding of transgender identity.
“I’ve basically felt every emotion through the entire speech,” Kowalczyk said. “But I walk out knowing so much more. I feel like I can appreciate and accept it fully and completely and have no sort of bias anymore.”
For each stage of life she discussed, Lynn showed pictures. She revealed photos from her childhood as a boy, photos of a car accident that killed her girlfriend at the time, photos of her children, documents from her custody battle and pictures during her transition into a woman.
“She wasn’t talking from a place of ‘help me,’” Kowalczyk said. “It was so strong the way she was presenting it and talking about how she got through things and I think it was a really good display of the story.”
Lynn has become an inspiring mouthpiece for the transgender community and her influence will undoubtedly only grow. Her life has been a non-stop fight, but she has jumped over every hurtle. And now, she’s using her story to reach communities and educate them on what it means to be transgender.
“She’s such a strong person to have overcome such adversity,” political science junior Sean O’Neill said.
Psychology sophomore Allison Newlee said the event taught her about transgender issues.
“It’s really cool seeing how the transgender movement is kind of starting to become more known,” Newlee said.
She said lectures like this are important in order to realize people identify in various ways — just because some people are different doesn’t make them less of a person.
“I think in general, exposure to people who are different from you is just really helpful to get people to be more accepting,” Newlee said.
One of Lynn’s main motivations for telling her story is to gain acceptance and understanding. She wants people to learn from and about her experience. She doesn’t do it for popularity or fame, but rather to educate communities about the truth behind transgender identity.
“We’re all different,” Lynn said. “We just happen to be a little bit different-er. We’re all human. We’re all the same deep down inside, we’re all living (and) breathing and we just need to accept each other.”