This year, the GLAAD Media Award nominees include a variety of trans-inclusive media stories in several different categories. With mainstream media representation of transgender people still much in need of improvement, it is more important than ever that trans voices and accurate portrayals of trans people are celebrated. The trans-inclusive GLAAD Media Award nominees include a diverse range of characters, personalities and issues, and we continue to urge the media to spotlight more of these types of stories.
In the film Musical Chairs, transgender actress Laverne Cox portrays Chantelle, an African American transgender woman in a wheelchair who learns to ballroom dance. The comedy series Glee now includes the character Unique, a trans-identified person of color, and the drama series Degrassi features Adam, another trans high school student.
AMC's reality show Small Town Security looks at a small, family-owned private security firm in rural Georgia. The man in charge of training and managing the firm's officers is a trans man named Dennis Croft.
MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry aired the segment, "Being Transgender in America," where the show's host spoke to trans author Kate Bornstein, the National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) executive director Mara Keisling, and New York City council candidate Mel Wymore about inequalities facing trans people across the nation.
An Outstanding Blog nomination went to blac(k)ademic, the blog of trans man Dr. Kortney Ryan Zeigler. Dr. Zeigler tweeted about the nomination: "I am lucky to be recognized for the work I do to increase black trans visibility. " His Transgender Day of Remembrance post "Why Centering Race in Transgender Advocacy Is Key to Equality for All" (crossposted to Huffington Post Gay Voices), discussed the importance of prioritizing and addressing issues facing transgender people of color.
Rock Center with Brian Williams profiled Chinese superstar Jin Xing, a trans woman with her own dance company, her own talk show, and a career making action films.
The journalism series "Generation Halsted" in the Windy City Times profiled the lives of Chicago's homeless LGBT youth, many of whom are transgender. More than 100 young people participated in the series. In his article "Why Aren't We Fighting For CeCe McDonald?" for Ebony.com, Marc Lamont Hill discussed the broad failure of the justice system with regard to the Black trans community that arose in CeCe's case.
Trans woman Andy Marra wrote movingly for HuffingtonPost.com about her experience as an adoptee connecting with her birth mother in Korea, and building a stronger relationship with her than she had ever imagined. The Advocate.com article "Eight Months in Solitary" by Andrew Harmon examined the abuse experienced by transgender immigration detainees under the supervision of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Among the Spanish-Language media nominees, there is the full-hour of interviews about coming out, acceptance, and transgender issues on Mega TV's entertainment talk show Paparazzi Magazine, as well as Univision newsmagazine Primer Impacto’s “Respeto a la diversidad,” which highlighted Transgender Day of Remembrance and educated viewers about transgender people's lives.
Check out the full list of GLAAD Media Awards nominees here. For a complete list of the nominees that are transgender-inclusive visit here.
Congratulations to all of the GLAAD Media Awards nominees!