About Us

Founded in 2021, TRANS is independent, nonpartisan and led by transgender and gender nonbinary people. News articles, feature stories and all other pieces posted on the site are the work of trans folx. TRANS adopts advocacy journalism, a genre with non-objective viewpoint for social or political purpose. TRANS contributors generally do not believe that the traditional ideal of objectivity exists, largely because of corporate sponsorship in advertising. TRANS is not influenced or endorsed by corporate-sponsored LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations, primarily led by white cisgender individuals rubbing elbows with politicians who may speak out for those living in the margins but do so, expecting a medal. TRANS aims to empower trans people to speak for themselves without counting on the "saviors."

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TRANS aims to disrupt mainstream news media’s ongoing misrepresentation of transgender and gender nonbinary community by fostering a long-due space, online platform for original content illuminating positive transgender narratives written and/or produced by transgender and gender nonbinary students 18 years and older whose identities may intersect with disabled and BIPOC identities. TRANS fills the void in telling uplifting trans stories underreported by the mainstream media outlets that traditionally afford trans people news coverage, that often is sensationalized, only after trans people get murdered or have to take legal action to protect trans rights. More importantly, TRANS will train the next generation of journalists to learn about higher journalism standards that include not causing additional harm (eg. stigmatizing and traumatizing) to marginalized communities and transgender media coverage guidelines that do exist but are not necessarily followed by journalists employed by mainstream outlets. These student journalist trainees will put in practice the knowledge they gain from learning materials TRANS provide them. Currently, there is no such training specifically focused on transgender coverage for either journalism students or professional journalists. 

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TRANS will raise the floor of what can be achieved through fairness and accuracy in news coverage and work toward holding mainstream news media accountable for their biased coverage about trans people and the issues facing the trans community. TRANS will work to put an end to news coverage on trans issues with quotes from sources who are not trans, but rather advocates for pay, "experts," talking heads and politicians as such misrepresentation can cause additional harm to the trans community. Mainstream media's excessive coverage of some trans issues without inclusion of trans voices alienates the trans community and dehumanizes trans people by normalizing public debates about trans bodies and making trans people's private matters (bathroom and surgery, etc.) public discourse, disregards trans autonomy and provokes backlash from both the right and left political aisles. TRANS-trained student journalists will talk to the people impacted by an issue to write about the issue and more importantly, to emphasize how trans people are overcoming and fighting against disparities and injustices to make the best versions of themselves, as students, athletes, teachers, nurses, doctors and lawyers, etc. 

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Trans people are just as diverse as the rest of the general public. However, according to GLAAD, an organization founded decades ago as a protest against defamatory coverage of LGBT people, only 20 percent of the United States residents personally know a trans person. For the most part, what they learn about trans identities, lives and issues is through the media. When Rachel Lavine, Sarah McBride, Laverne Cox and Eliot Page are overreported by news and entertainment outlets, the general public gets the impression that trans people are achieving their fullest potential in their careers. In reality, trans people face employment discrimination at twice the rate that non-transgender people are subjected to this barrier to employment. Black and brown transgender and gender non-binary job seekers are four times as likely to get discriminated against in employment as their white cisgender counterparts.

The media is responsible for public discourse because the media has the power to change public opinion. So when news outlets cover excessively about the “bathroom bills” and trans women’s murders and not much of anything else about trans people, the public does not get the whole picture of who trans people are: students, teachers, lawyers, doctors, nurses, firefighters, etc. Many outlets sensationalize trans people’s suffering (which is real and valid) but contrast that with these same outlets glamorizing accomplishments of non-trans people who have experienced marginalization of some sort. There should be more uplifting stories about trans people overcoming adversities but these kinds of human-interest stories about non-celebrity, everyday transgender people are far and few. To change this narrative coming from the newsrooms, the change needs to start from the inside: the newsrooms.