ABOUT AFTYN
COMING HOME.
An active Girl Scout until she was 18, Aftyn grew up in Knoxville and started her advocacy career early. She attended high school in Knoxville where she was nominated to represent her high school in the Knoxville Mayor’s Youth Council in addition to achieving her Girl Scout Gold Award. Following graduation, Aftyn attended the University of Texas at Austin where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the Liberal Arts Honors and the Psychology Honors programs. In 2014, she enrolled in UT Austin’s Steve Hicks School of Social Work specializing in disability studies and public policy.
In 2016, Aftyn watched the election night returns abroad where she had been working for the United Nations advocating for refugees and forcibly displaced persons. Unlike many of her peers, Aftyn decided to return to Tennessee because she wanted to advocate for people at home. When she returned, the first person she met with was Rep. Gloria Johnson who helped Aftyn, like so many others, get involved with politics.
FIGHTING BACK.
In 2017, Aftyn was hired by the Tennessee Justice Center as their healthcare community organizer and she was thrown into the chaos of preserving the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid. She traveled across the state raising awareness about the Trump administration’s attacks on healthcare and putting pressure on Tennessee’s elected officials to pass policies for the uninsured and families with kids with disabilities. She organized with many state legislative representatives during this time including Senator Charlane Oliver, Rep. Gloria Johnson, Rep. Justin Jones, Rep. John Ray Clemmons and Rep. Craig Fitzhugh.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
In 2018, Aftyn was hired by a national organization called Indivisible, where she campaigned for Democrats up and down the Tennessee ballot. This was also the year she launched the Enough Is Enough TN campaign, supported by Dr. Michelle’s Dauber national PAC Enough is Enough, to raise awareness of former Rep. David Byrd, a rural legislator who had sexually assaulted underage girls when he was their basketball coach. Aftyn, along some of the women featured in the photo spent nights - yes, literally spent the night - in the Capitol demanding the resignation of Rep. David Byrd. Rep. Gloria Johnson and Rep. Mike Stewart bought pizza and snacks while keeping them company as they slept in sleeping bags on the Capitol marble floor.
SHAPING THE FUTURE.
Since 2021, Aftyn has worked as the Campaign Director for a national political group called RuralOrganizing.org where she oversees the organization's electoral strategy and execution and shapes the political and policy landscape impacting small towns and rural communities. In the Spring of 2022, the White House invited Aftyn to attend President Biden’s announcement on affordable high-speed internet due to her tireless efforts advocating for reliable broadband both nationally and in Tennessee.
Aftyn currently serves on the steering committee for the Southern Connected Communities Project, a non-profit dedicated to bringing internet connectivity to underserved or unserved areas, with an emphasis on community input and ownership and Healthy and Free TN, an organization working to grow a reproductive justice movement across race, class, and gender in Tennessee.
Aftyn’s international, federal and state experience has prepared her to serve in the Tennessee State House and shape the future into one that works for us all.
Photo by the wonderful Matt Ferry
ENJOYING LIFE.
When Aftyn isn’t at the Legislature or out in her community, she’s at home snuggling with her animals Franky (the pug), Lilly (the chonky cat), and Nug (the chaos agent), or watching RuPaul’s Drag Race at home with her partner Chris and Chris’ sons Sam and Luc. If you want to follow Aftyn’s animals on the campaign trail, be sure to check out the animals’ Instagram account called “ChonkyTonk.”
Once a month, she makes the trek back to Knoxville to see her parents Bruce and Julianne, who have put up with her for 33 years and are her biggest fans. She also loves bugging her little brother Landyn, who, despite living in Dallas, is always ready to receive a political tweet with the comment “lol thought of you.”
P.S. If you need a podcast recommendation, Aftyn’s mom created “Red State, Blue Mom” which has over 1 MILLION views. Download the latest episode by clicking here.
