Last Thursday, Washington D.C. unveiled a new campaign in support of trans* people. Trans* people in D.C. frequently (even by US standards) suffer violence, often at the hands of local authorities.
I think the campaign walks something of a fine line– it attempts to show trans* people as “normal” residents of D.C. with typical interests, so there’s a bit of gender stereotyping. (I’m general not a fan of normalcy as a virtue.) There’s also the issue of the limits to which civil rights laws are the remedy from institutional discrimination (see Dean Spade’s latest book). So yeah, I’m a bitter, bitter queer.
That said, HOLY FUCK EVERYBODY HOLY FUCK, EVERYBODY. When I came out seven years ago, I had a hard time imaging an American government publicly supporting trans* people. Damn.
From the Washington D.C. Office of Human Rights:
The groundbreaking Transgender and Gender Identity Respect Campaign has been called by advocates the first government-funded campaign focused exclusively on the betterment of transgender and gender non-conforming people. Developed at the DC Office of Human Rights (OHR) in close consultation with transgender advocates and community members, the campaign aims to increase understanding and respect for the transgender and gender non-conforming communities, decrease incidents of discrimination and increase reporting of discrimination to OHR. The five campaign ads feature actual community members, and will appear citywide on bus shelters in the fall and winter of 2012.
Read the OHR’s full statement here.
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