BIOGRAPHIES

Sally Gross

Sally Gross is a former exiled anti-apartheid activist, and is now Research and Policy Adviser for the Regional Land Claims Commission in Cape Town. Born and bred in South Africa, she was involved in the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa and during many years of exile in Britain, and was also active in the struggle for justice and peace and against the occupation in Israel/Palestine where her family have lived for more than three decades.

Sally was born intersexed and classified male at birth. Having sought medical advice she was found to be intersexed in 1993, at the age of 40, and was then reclassified as female.

She holds a Masters degree from Oxford University, where she was a member of the Dominican Order and served as a Catholic priest. Rabbinically trained in her teens and a long-standing practitioner of Buddhist meditation, she served a term as secretary of the Oxford University Buddhist Society in 1983 while a Friar – probably the only Jewish Dominican Friar ever to serve as an officer of a Buddhist Society. She taught philosophy, ethics, moral theology and general theology at Oxford and elsewhere, while working on a Doctoral thesis.

Due to her openness about the discovery that she is intersexed, a Papal Rescript pushed her out of the Church, and ended her teaching and academic work. Sally has also served as co-Clerk of both the Eastbourne and Cape Quaker meetings. Sally is an expert on diverse spiritualities (including Judaism and Theravada Buddhism).

Interview on BBC World Service with Sally Gross, 20 September 2009

For more information on Sally Gross read the three part interview-series in The Natal Witness Features (2000) and a recent update:

• 1. The journey from Selwyn to Sally;
• 2. Shunned by the church; and
• 3. The struggle to be Sally
• Updated feature article (2009)

Contact Sally: Tel: +27-21-4476290 or political@intersex.org.za

Bernedette Muthien, Executive Director of Engender

Bernedette is an independent scholar-activist, engaged in strategic interventions (including research and facilitation) in the areas of human rights, conflict resolution, gender and gender-based violence, as well sexualities and HIV/AIDS. She is committed to transformation, equity (with justice), and non-violence.

She has published creative writing and academic work widely, written for diverse audiences, and believes in accessible research and writing.

At the end of 2003 Bernedette co-founded a non-profit organisation, Engender, to formalise the work she had engaged in since leaving the African Gender Institute, University of Cape Town, at the end of 2001. Engender provides research & capacity building for communities of people on genders & sexualities, human rights, justice & peace.

Her community activism is integrally related to her work with international organisations, and her research necessarily reflects the values of equity, social change and justice. Bernedette has published both creative writing and academic work in South Africa and abroad. She has written for diverse audiences and is committed to accessible research and writing.

AFFILIATIONS include: Executive Council of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) 2000-2006, and still serves as co-convenor of its Global Political Economy Commission. Member of Amanitare, the African network of gender NGOs. Member of the International Advisory Board of the international journal, Human Security Studies, as well as the International Resource Network on Sexualities, administered by CUNY. Regional Editor (Africa & Asia) of the international journal, Queries.

Bernedette is originally from a large working class black family of mixed origins. Her absolute commitment to human rights and social and economic justice is rooted in both her personal background, as well as her anti-apartheid activism. She honed her skills in community organising with grassroots movements during the eighties. Due to intense student activism her teenage years were marked by expulsions from schools and university, detentions and imprisonment.

Bernedette’s professional life has echoed the belief that the personal is political, and the global local, and hence her work has consistently centred on the issues of gender, human rights, and peace.

Contact Bernedette: Tel: +27-21-4476290 or info@engender.org.za

Funeka Soldaat, Community Outreach Officer

Nicole Brink, intern