This is the Panel Discussion at the Out In Africa Gay and Lesbian Film Festival is organised in conjunction with Gender Dynamix.

Important questions are raised:

• Is being gay, Lesbian or Bi only about who you love?
• Or, is it also about Body and Social Identity?
• Why should GLB people be in alliance with Trans people?

These, and other questions, will be tackled by the Panellists

Johannesburg

Saturday, 10 March after the screening of Paris Is Burning
Panellists: Jennie Livingston, Liesl Theron, Robert Hamblin, Vania Rozarios

Cape Town

Saturday, 17 March after screening of Paris Is Burning
Panellists: Jennie Livingston, Liesl Theron, Robert Hamblin, Sharntel Ontong

Panellists

A passionate, workaholic, hands-on gender activist, Liesl Theron founded Gender DynamiX in July 2005 in response to the unique characteristics and challenges of transgenderism in South Africa. She shares her expertise by serving on the Cape Town Pride Planning Committee, the Council of Good Hope MCC, and the Joint Working Group (JWG), and for programmes like Health24.

She consults, gives radio interviews regularly, writes articles for magazines, presents workshops and utilizes Gender DynamiX to facilitate interactions in the community. Gender DynamiX serves also on the International Resources Network’s African Editorial Board. She escapes to a small country cottage with a pile of books and to hike in order to remain sane. 

Robert A. Hamblin, 37, is a transman. In his photography and art he creates narratives of the human state and explores gender issues to increase awareness and transform gender relations. He began as the only woman in the Beeld photographic team, and went freelance at 21. A successful career as a conceptual artist and commercial photographer followed. While living in the US, with his Texan partner, Robert discovered that his lifelong discomfort with his body and the identity imposed on him at birth, actually had a name.

He met other transgender and transsexual people, decided to face his demons and embarked on a journey towards a truer version of himself. His films are part of a body of work exploring these issues and have been shown locally and internationally at art festivals.

Sharntel Ontong is a 29 year old Capetonian transwoman. Sharntel describes herself as someone who always knew she was going to be succesfull but the utter discomfort she felt with her body from a very young age made her feel trapped. As a teenager and young adult she felt attracted to men but felt that the identity of a gay man just did not fit.

Today Sharntell is an independent woman working for the Department of Health, living full time as a woman. She says she has come along way from being an unhappy boy who was afraid of life and who had no idea that one could transcend the gender boundaries. Today she is a very positive woman that knows what she wants out of life and who will never give up until she has it.

Vania Rozarios is a 22 year old Johannesburg Trans woman who knew that her sex did not match her gender, and expressed her true gender from a young age. She excelled academically, and in athletics, at Barnato Park High. Outspoken about her femininity, she was tolerated because of her achievements and was elected school president for two years running.

She liked the title ‘President’, a genderless word, but for her it still meant head-girl! Vania won a prestigious bursary from Deloitte & Touche and studies at the Forbes Lever Baker Training Institute for Accountants. Vania loves advocating for self acceptance. She says "when you accept yourself it makes it hard for others not to". In her free time Vania does modelling work and activism for Trans issues.

Paris Is Burning was one of the most-seen American independent films of the 1990s; it won a Sundance Grand Jury Prize, a Teddy Bear at the Berlinale, and an audience award from the Toronto International Film Festival. Jennie Livingston's Who's the Top? premièred at the 2005 Berlinale and has played at 80 festivals worldwide. Upcoming works include Earth Camp One, a personal documentary about grief and loss; and The Room in the Mountain, a feature set in the art worlds, in 1989, of East Berlin and New York. Completed works include Through the Ice (festival première, Sundance, 2006), commissioned by WNET-New York; and Hotheads (1994), commissioned by the Red Hot Organization, whose proceeds benefit AIDS research and treatment. Livingston grew up in Los Angeles, was educated at Yale, and lives in Brooklyn, New York.

---