GLAAD's president has called on Hollywood to create more transgender characters for television, saying there needs to be a cultural “watershed” like the one experienced for gay men in the 1990s.
Sarah Kate Ellis has served as GLAAD's CEO for 10 years. talked to variety on what he plans to say when he accepts a special award at the Emmy Awards on Monday.
“We've seen Ellen DeGeneres come out, Will & Grace'' Ellis told the trade publication.
“What we have yet to experience is a turning point for the trans community. I see this opportunity as a chance to tell the academy and all of the creators in the room that we need that moment. We need to create and write about transgender people because over 500 anti-LGBTQ bills have been proposed in the last year, most of them against transgender people and transgender youth.”
Ellis points to laws that protect children from irreversible medical procedures such as gender reassignment surgery and hormone therapy.
Mainstream news media uses the innocuous-sounding term “gender-affirming care” to describe these procedures, many of which are experimental when it comes to children.
Ellis continued, “But right now, the people occupying that space in the media are political commentators who are misinforming and talking about transgender people in negative ways. We need Hollywood to respond to that. We need an antidote.”
GLAAD's latest diversity report found that from 2022 to 2023, transgender characters will make up 5.4 percent of characters across all television platforms, both regular and recurring.
In fact, less than 1% of adults identify as transgender. study from UCLA School of Law Williams Institute.
However, the number of young people who identify as transgender is rapidly increasing, with research estimates of the number of young people identifying as transgender now double previous estimates.
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