• by Danielle Oster , June 6, 2024

For trans people facing a historic wave of anti-trans legislation and hate in recent years, visibility is a complicated issue.

Too often that visibility comes in the form of fear-mongering and misinformation about trans people, in service of attacks on trans rights. LGBTQ+ advocacy groups’ GLAAD’s trans acceptance campaign “Here We Are,” allows trans people of different backgrounds to tell their stories in their own words, in order to reach audiences with a lack of exposure to such perspectives -- including many who have never met or seen positive media representation of a trans person. 

GLAAD Transgender Advocacy Consultant Shane Diamond told Marketing Daily about the double-edged sword: “With increased visibility of trans people, we see increases in violence against trans people.”

The campaign aims to combat anti-trans hate at a crucial moment. This year, far right state legislators have introduced a record 586 bills targeting trans people (eclipsing the record of 550 set the previous year).

“Here We Are” doesn’t focus on laws or political issues, instead focusing on humanizing transgender people through a series of six powerful videos of three trans people from different backgrounds, and their families: a college student named Nadya and her dad, Mickey; a speaker and consultant from Ohio named Ashton and his father, Rick, a Republican public affairs consultant; and Gio, a U.S. Air Force veteran, and his sister, Chantille.

“It’s important to give us a mic,” Nadya said, “to show we are here, we are visible, Being trans is a part of our identity but not the only part of our identity.”

The campaign will run nationally in 60- and 30-second video formats through the end of June but is “just the beginning,” Diamond said.

To the extent that trans people are given voice in positive representation at all, it’s largely limited to a subsection of the trans community. “There was not any representation when I was coming out, of trans men,” Ashton told Marketing Daily. “I had to dig to find grainy videos on YouTube to see this was an actual possibility.”

As a Black trans man, Gio said experiences like his own have been even less visible.

“You're going to see more trans women, some white trans masc folks but not Black trans masc folks,” he said. “Media is trying to do better, but it’s not there.”

Each of the participants spoke of the importance of showing positive depictions of trans people and their families.

“Not many trans women in media [are shown] smiling with their families,” Nadya said, adding that sharing her story showed people it was possible.

The campaign follows 10 months of extensive research from the organization and Ground Media, its partner on the campaign. 12,000 Americans across the political spectrum  who reported being “undecided” on trans rights issues were surveyed quantitatively,  along with eight qualitative focus groups.

The study found that only 28% of non-LGBTQ Americans reported personally knowing a transgender person.

“For the majority of Americans who say they haven't met a trans person, it's really easy to vilify people that you don’t know. We need to introduce Americans audiences to more trans people,” Diamond said. “How do we do that [at a large scale], in way that protects the safety of trans people?”

Among the findings of the report were that around 53.5% of Americans “lean towards” believing that being transgender is real and not changeable -- with 12% responding that they were “undecided.” This suggested such people lacked exposure to quality information on the subject and were persuadable.

The campaign’s primary focus is on addressing this “movable middle” or “winnable middle,” which Diamond describes as “people who believe… everyone has a right to happiness, to live without fear, and the right to be themselves” but “maybe because they haven't met a trans person. it's very easy to swallow and digest so much of the disinformation flooding the media right now.”

So, for example, Ashton noted that "I have done a lot of advocacy work with my dad. He's a conservative Republican guy...but he supports me as his son."

GLAAD rigorously tested all six videos with audiences in a randomized controlled trial with a sample of more than 8,000 Americans to ensure their efficacy. They found that the videos increased viewers’ belief that being trangender is real and unchangeable by an average of 10%.

Strikingly, however, among the group of viewers who felt the U.S. has “gone too far in accepting transgender people,” the videos increased this belief by an average of 18%.

Still, “making introductions across community lines,” Diamond explained, and giving such audiences  a window into the real world experience of trans people in their own words can still act as a positive antidote to hate.

In many ways, the campaign’s power comes from confronting people with the simple truth about the humanity of a group of people so often dehumanized.

“It feels so simple: It is just me and my dad. and we’re walking in this park next to my house,” Ashton said, “yet it’s seemingly so complex for people outside of my world.

“It really is so simple,” he added. “I’m a human being and I don't even want to keep saying that. How could you not see the humanity in me to begin with?”