Yaya Mavundla, TRUELOVE Magazine 2022

Multi-Award-Winning Transgender Activist/Media Personality | Reality TV Star | Curator | Board Member | Fashion Muse

About YAYA

Yaya Mavundla, born and bred in Untunjambili, Kranskop. Mavundla raised by her grandmother, left home at the age of 16 and moved to Durban for greener pastures. She completed her matric in 2010 at Wiggins Secondary High School and she is a Services SETA graduate under Mentoring & Coaching and Skills Development Facilitator program.

She is a South African artist, multi-award winning transgender activist/media

personality and former reality TV star. Mavundla was introduced to the South African mainstream through Becoming, a reality TV show that followed the lives of Transgender people in South Africa on Mzansi Magic & Showmax.

This July on Mandela Day, she became the first Transgender woman in Africa to present a TEDx

talk at the TEDxJohannesburgSalon: 17 Global Goals. In 2018, Mavundla became the first person in Africa to wear the Amsterdam Rainbow Dress, photographed at the Constitutional Court of South Africa. In 2022, she launched her own clothing line, Queer Comfort, and as an artist, her Black, Trans & Bold exhibition of her paintings have been exhibited solo at the historical Women’s Jail at Constitution Hill.

She has been billed to host some of the major red carpet events such as Miss World South Africa 2023 live on S3, SAMA29 for Proudly SA, 5th JoBurg Film Festival and was the host for The Queer Met 2023 in proud partnership with Jean Paul Gaultier.

In 2023, she became the first black person to have a billboard in Luzerne, Switzerland.

She is a community advisory board member at Wits RHI Transgender clinic and former board member at Gender DynamiX. Mavundla is the first Transgender Woman in Africa to wear The Amsterdam Rainbow Dress photographed at Constitution Hill and it artworks currently on display at the Constitutional Court of South Africa.

Mavundla is the brainchild behind Layers of a Black Transgender Woman exhibition, Mzansi Queer Festival and 31 Years of PRIDE Catalogue. In February 2022 she has become the first openly transgender woman to model for TRUELOVE Magazine fashion pages.

She has graced a number of magazine covers; GLAMOUR South Africa, PREVIDAR, Front page, Tagged, OAK Avenue, EXIT and OUT AFRICA Magazine to name a few, of which OUT AFRICA Magazine named her The Future of Television and New Generation Icon.

AWARDS

2024

GLAMOUR's Most GLAMOURous - Readers Choice Award (Winner)

2023

Feather Awards - Best Style Personality (Winner)

Africa Choice Awards - People’s Choice (Nominee)

2022

Fashion Industry Awards SA - Fashion Muse of the Year (Winner)

Basadi in Music Awards - Social Media Influencer (Nominee)

2021

Feather Awards - Media of the Year: Becoming (Winner)

Sowetan Women’s Club - Trendsetter of the Year (Winner)