Hejin Kim
Hejin Kom (South Africa, South-Korea) is a lesbian transgender and former sex worker. She was born in South Korea, but raised in Belgium. When she became of age, she relocated to the Netherlands where she transitioned. After living in South Korea for a year and a half, she is now residing in South Africa. Through the years, she has worked locally, regionally and internationally on sexual rights, human rights, sex workers' rights, queer women's issues and transgender issues. Over ten years she worked with anf for a.o.
- YouAct (European Youth Network on Sexual and Reproductive Rights);
- Labrys in Kyrgyzstan;
- the Korean Transgender Activist Network;
- the Centre for Women's Culture and Theory in Seoul;
- the Prostitution Information Centre in Amsterdam;
- the International Committee on Rights of Sex Workers in Europe;
- the AIDS legal network in Cape Town and Gender DynamiX in South-Africa.
As programme coordinator of Gender DynamiX she has been working with the South African Police Services in Cape Town to develop standard operating procedures to deal with transgender people. Currently, she is working with the World Health Organisation regarding the upcoming clinical trials of transgender related codes of the ICD-11. Furthermore, she is coordinating the Second Trans Health and Advocacy Conference in Cape Town, to be held in 2014, after being part of the planning committee of the very successful first conference in 2011.
While she does the majority of fund raising at the organisation, she also makes time to contribute to research efforts; this year she will be involved in a project aiming at understanding the specific challenges that transgeder youth faces in South Africa.
Hejin Kim participated in one of the "couch sessions" at the Antwerp conference.
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