All are welcome to join a service led by Liberation UCC. Lunch will be served.

Each year on March 31, the world observes Transgender Day of Visibility (TDOV) to raise awareness about transgender people. It is a day to celebrate the lives and contributions of trans people, while also drawing attention to the poverty, discrimination, and violence the community faces.

International TDOV was created in 2010 by trans advocate Rachel Crandall. Crandall, the head of Transgender Michigan, created TDOV in response to the overwhelming majority of media stories about transgender people being focused on violence. She hoped to create a day where people could re-focus on celebrating the lives of transgender people, empowering them to live authentically, while still acknowledging that due to discrimination, not every trans person can or wants to be visible.

The vast majority of the public learns about trans people from the media. This is a problem because, as shown in the Netflix documentary Disclosure, the media has overwhelmingly misrepresented, mischaracterized, and stereotyped trans people since the invention of film. These false depictions have indisputably shaped the cultural understanding of who trans people are and have taught the public how to react to and treat trans people in their lives. It's going to take a lot of work to undo the harm caused by these depictions.

According to Gallup, while only about 30% of the general American public says they personally know a trans person, that percentage drastically varies when segmented by age. For example, 19% of Americans over 65 claim to know someone trans while half (50%) of Americans under the age of 30 do. This isn't surprising when taken into account that 1 in 6 Gen Z adults identify as LGBTQ, according to Gallup's 2022 poll. 

Over the past decade or so, society has become more accepting as trans people feel increasingly comfortable and confident being publicly and fully themselves. There has also been a growing backlash from anti-LGBTQ activists who are targeting trans people, especially children. After marriage equality was made law in the U.S. In 2023, hundreds of anti-LGBTQ bills were filed, a majority specifically targeting trans people, particularly youth. This hypervisibility typically comes at the expense of trans people who are demonized and scapegoated by politicians and in media. 

That's why it's still necessary for trans people to be seen through authentic, diverse, and accurate stories to reflect the actual lived experiences of trans people; both for themselves and for those people who believe they've never met a trans person. That includes in news media, where too often trans people's voices are missing from coverage of anti-trans laws and policies affecting their lives. Without trans people and experts weighing in, and without trans representation in newsrooms to help guide coverage, anti-trans discrimination is often misrepresented in the news as a “culture clash” rather than as targeted hate.

A few of the highlights specific to the trans community include:

• 41% of respondents who had been exposed to LGBTQ people in the media say they are more accepting of non-binary people over the past few years when compared to the respondents who had not recently seen LGBTQ people in the media (30%).
• 80% of respondents who had been exposed to LGBTQ people in the media say they are supportive of equal rights for LGBTQ people when compared to the respondents who had not recently seen LGBTQ people in the media (70%).

• To learn more about what it means to be transgender, click here.
• To understand how to be a better ally to the trans community, click here.
• For answers to frequently asked questions, click here.
• For more resources, click here.