Nick Adams (right) and his partner, John Eger (left).
On Wednesday, June 24, 2015, Nick Adams, GLAAD's Director of Programs for Transgender Media, attended the LGBT Pride Month Reception at the White House. The reception included a speech from President Barack Obama and an appearance by Vice President Joe Biden. Adams attended with his partner of 14 years, John Eger, alongside many LGBT advocates and organizers.
Nick Adams (right) with teen trans advocate, Jazz Jennings (center), and her parents, Jeanette and Greg (left).
In his role as Director of Programs, Transgender Media, Adams works with Senior Media Strategist Dani Heffernan to lead GLAAD's longstanding work to increase the quantity and quality of transgender representation in news, entertainment, and digital media. Adams, a transgender man, joined GLAAD's staff in 1998 and previously served as GLAAD’s Director of Communications & Special Projects. In his 17 years at GLAAD, he has significantly contributed to the organization’s ongoing commitment to transgender visibility. In 1998 he created the transgender section of GLAAD's Media Reference Guide, which included best practices for reporting on the transgender community – standards that the Associated Press and The New York Times subsequently used to improve their own style guides. He has worked with dozens of television shows to help them create more realistic, multi-dimensional transgender characters, including: Degrassi which won a Peabody Award for its inclusion of a transgender teen; Glee, which worked with Adams to recruit a 200-person transgender choir; and The Bold and the Beautiful, which currently has the only series-regular transgender character on scripted broadcast and cable television. Adams has conducted trainings on how to fairly and accurately portray transgender people to high-level executives at NBC, FOX, CBS, Viacom Networks, E!, Bravo, Oxygen, TLC, and other networks.
While researching and reporting the interview with Olympian and reality star Caitlyn Jenner, ABC looked to Adams and GLAAD as a valuable source of information on the issues affecting the transgender community. Adams is currently working with E! as they create a docu-series about Caitlyn Jenner to premiere on July 26, 2015. He is also working with TLC as they prepare to launch I Am Jazz, starring trans teen advocate Jazz Jennings and her family. (See photo above.) I Am Jazz premieres on TLC on July 15, 2015.
During President Obama's speech at the Pride Month Reception, a trans Latina advocate and undocumented immigrant, Jennicet Gutiérrez, called for an end to the abuse and torture of trans women in immigration detention centers and for the release of all LGBTQ detainees. Monica Trasandes and Janet Quezada, GLAAD's Spanish-Language and Latino Media team, have been working with partner organizations to draw media attention to the issue of LGBT people in dentention - particularly transgender women. Last August, we joined others calling for the release of a transgender woman of color after she was raped by her cell mate at an immigration detention center in Arizona. The Eloy Detention Center in Phoenix detained 23-year-old Marichuy, who identifies as a trans woman, for over a year in the privately-owned, 1,437-detainee facility. In May, GLAAD elevated the story of Nicoll, a trans woman from Guatemala who was finally freed with the help of Mariposas sin Fronteras a group of LGBT and allied organizers that work to free LGBT detainees. And earlier this week we brought attention to an upcoming rally being organized by United We Dream and the Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project to increase awareness about LGBT immigrants in detention.
In May, GLAAD announced that a Fusion investigation into the issue of trans women in detention received the award for Outstanding Digital Journalism - Multimedia at the 26th Annual GLAAD Media Awards.