Blossom Brown is one of many Mississippi University for Women students who will graduate this December and head off to nursing school. What makes her story special, and part of why she will be speaking in Mississippi State University’s Colvard Student Union Monday, is it took nothing short of Ellen Degeneres calling her onstage to find a nursing school that would accept her application. 
Brown is a transgender woman born in Greenville and Nov. 16 will discuss elements of trans life in the south in Fowlkes Auditorium   located on the third floor of the Union at 7 p.m. 
Brown said she lived most of her life in Jackson before moving to Columbus to attend MUW  after she decided to move to Columbus because she felt she would have more opportunities for her than in Jackson. However, as she got closer and closer to graduation, she ran into a problem – none of the nursing schools she applied to would accept her application. 
That is where Degeneres, after hearing of Brown’s struggle from Caitlyn Jenner with whom Brown had been working with on her show “I am Cait,” invited Brown onstage and implored nursing schools to give Brown the opportunity to further pursue the career she had spent years working toward. 
“Progress came right away after ‘ellen’,” Brown said. “A lot of schools reached out to me all at once.”
Now, when she is not traveling in between speaking engagements across the nation, appearing on shows on the E network, or taking online classes, Brown is trying to pick from the long list of nursing schools spanning the country that have contacted her with offers.
Brown said she has been busy consistently since her appearance on ‘ellen’ and her work with the E Network show ‘I am Cait,’ but while she has given public speeches in an expansive list of places, until her appearance next Monday at MSU she has yet to discuss growing up trans in the south in the state she grew up in. 
“I guess you could say this will be my first Starkville gig,” Brown said. 
The speaking opportunity is a combined effort between the Holmes Cultural Diversity Center, the LGBTQ+ Union, and the Gender Studies Program. MSU Recreational Sports, Health Education and Wellness and HCDC are sponsoring the event. 
Kim Kavalsky, coordinator of mental health outreach in MSU Health Ed. and Wellness, said Cedric Gathings and others in HCDC reached out to Brown. 
Kavalsky said she was interested in assisting with the event as soon as she heard about it.
“A lot of the work I deal with is focused on marginalized individuals within society,” Kavalsky said. “Brown’s story and how she is overcoming the difficulty of her position is powerful, and we wanted to do anything we could to assist HCDC in bringing her voice to MSU.” 
Rachel Ross, a coordinator within HCDC who worked on this event, said they decided to reach out to Brown to give her an opportunity to speak in her home state for the first time and because the month of November has several days focusing on transgendered individuals. 
“We are really excited to host Brown,” Ross said. “She has made a lot of strides as a transgender woman in the south. We want to pack the house!”
Brown said she spent most of this week traveling, but is looking forward to being a little closer to her regular stomping grounds. 
“I stay in Columbus, and my friends and I are always in the Cotton District on the weekends,” Brown said.
While Brown now has plenty of schools to choose from, none of the options she is considering are in Mississippi, and most are indeed very far removed from the south. Brown said this prospect appeals to her, but that is not to say she is completely over life in Mississippi. 
“I like it in the Golden Triangle,” Brown said. “People here seem to be a little more open and friendlier. I’ve enjoyed my time here, I hate to leave. Sometimes I think maybe I’ll come back here to retire.”