“This is Me” – Transgender Activist Candis Cox to Speak at UNC Asheville on Nov. 7

Candis Cox, a lecturer and LGBTQ advocate, will present a free public talk, This is Me: Musings about Co-starring with Cate Blanchett, RuPaul’s Drag Race and Being a Black Transgender Woman in the South, at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 7, in UNC Asheville’s Lipinsky Auditorium. This lecture is presented by the university’s student Sociology and Anthropology Club.

Cox, who is secretary of the Equality NC board and sits on its executive committee, has worked to develop inclusion policies for national and local organizations in North Carolina’s Triangle region. She received significant media attention when she became the first and only transgender person to meet with then Governor Pat McCrory about HB2, the 2016 law that preempted local anti-discrimination ordinances, and sought to bar transgender people from public bathrooms that did not match the gender printed on their birth certificate.

Cox has appeared on MSNBC and CNN, and shared the stage with Cate Blanchett and others at New York City’s historic Stonewall Inn, all lip syncing at a drag show event supporting the Newtown Action Alliance, founded after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. She also walked the runway at Charlotte’s NCFA Style Week Fashion Show, wearing a dress designed to represent the transgender flag. She has a B.A. in sociology from NC State University.

For more information, please email Sociology and Anthropology Club Secretary Melanie Ortiz, mortiz@unca.edu.

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