MAGNET Boycotts GLAAD’s & American Apparel’s 'Transsexual Erasure' & Misgendering Campaign

Boycott GLAAD’s & American Apparel’s Non-Affirming and Misgendering Campaign



GLAAD and American Apparel are partnering on a ‘Pride Month’ campaign with Isis King (Tyra Bank's America's Next Top Model’s first contestant born with transsexualism) modeling T-shirts that read “Legalize Gay”; however, Isis is a heterosexual woman, not a “gay” man. Gender identity or a transsexual medical condition is not the same thing as sexual orientation. The word “gay” is not interchangeable with the word transsexual. The advertisements, perhaps unintentionally, send misleading and nonaffirming messaging about transsexual and transgender realities. All we ask for is accuracy, which includes reforming GLAAD’s media guide section on transsexual related representation.

TAKE ACTION in 3 steps:

1) BOYCOTT-- MAGNET and other transsexual, transgender, intersex, feminist and ally groups are boycotting GLAAD’s and American Apparel’s pride month t-shirts due to their problematic messaging. We call our campaign: 'Transsexual' Will Not Be Censored

2) REPRESENT-- We ask those who support our educational campaign against misrepresentation to go online to purhcase  environmentally safe t-shirts (or design and create your own) which read one of three slogans:

• Legalize Transsexualism 
• We Will Not Be Erased
• 'Transsexual' Will Not Be Censored

3) JOIN CAMPAIGN-- You're Invited to Join Our Online Discussion / Get Updated Info:

'Transsexual' Will Not Be Censored Facebook Group page:  https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/242017769243699

Ashley Love, a MAGNET organizer, explains, “GLAAD fights the good fight for us many times, yet this time they’ve irresponsibly made a decision that appeared to not consider the confusing messaging that the ad could send to the public. They inadvertently went against their mission statement by validating the transphobic misconception that Isis and other women like her are “gay” males, instead of who they really are - women, period. The constant misgendering of women of transsexual experience by GLAAD and other ‘LGBT’ groups derails accurate education on transsexualism and must stop.”

Professor Joelle Ruby, PHD. of New Hampshire University, a transsexual advocate, was recently on two panels about feminism in the transsexual and transgender communities during the Philadelphia Trans* Health Conference and made a public statement on Facebook about this story:

“[GLAAD] hire TRANSSEXUAL model Isis King to model…t-shirts that say "Legalize Gay" and "Gay is OK". They erase King's transsexualism (AND TRANS RIGHTS in general) to forward their gay-centric agenda. And then they wonder why we critique Gay, Inc.???"

Chanel Jessica Lopez, transsexual and transgender communities based counselor at New York City’s Anti-Violence Project, personally objects to GLAAD’s and American Apparel’s campaign and stands with the boycott:

“As my past and present experience working with the community has taught me, those of us who are straight don't like to be considered anything other than a heterosexual woman. Just as damaging as physical violence could be mental violence, like erasing one’s accurate identity, such as misgendering, causing psychological abuse. I support equality for all; however, Isis should respectfully be recognized as a woman, not a commodity to be co-opted for a gay and lesbian only demographic.”

Messaging and images that promote (whether intentional or not) ideas of segregation and sex discrimination are serious matters which must be addressed. GLAAD's messaging in their advertisements feed invalidating and inaccurate misperceptions. We hope our campaign will foster affirming and forward messaging.

For media inquiries or information:

Contact Ashley Love, MAGNET Communications Organizer, Email: Magnet.Advocacy@gmail.com

Media Advocates Giving National Equality to Transsexual & Transgender People (MAGNET) is an anti-defamation organization dedicated to educating the media about transsexual, transgender and intersex issues.
MAGNET’s website: http://www.themagnetsource.blogspot.com/  

After the Public Outcry against GLAAD Mislabeling Janet Mock’s Medical Condition, GLAAD Edits Their Inaccurate Term “Transgender” to “Transsexual”

May 21, 2011

Shortly following MAGNET’s outreach to GLAAD and MAGNET organizer Ashley Love’s open letter to Marie Claire magazine, GLAAD concedes and edits their inaccurate labeling of Janet Mock as “transgender” and replaces it with “transsexual”.


Janet Mock, an editor for People.com, opened up this week about her transsexul history
In a public comment made yesterday by Janet Mock on her fan page that she addressed to Ashley Love, Janet writes:

"Hi Ashley - I read your open letter and was so so intrigued. GLAAD graciously contacted me this morning to ask how I wanted to be identified and amended their headline to Transsexual."

This week Janet Mock, an editor for People.com, disclosed her transsexual medical condition in an op-ed in Marie Claire magazine. Both in her article and on her website, JanetMock.com, Janet only uses the term transsexual to refer to her condition. However, in a blatant disregard for Janet’s testimony, GLAAD mislabeled her as “transgender” in their coverage, which provoked numerous LGBT news sources to follow the inaccurate labeling as well. The appropriation of Janet’s transsexual condition by gay and transgender politics sparked a public outcry by many transsexual advocates and organizations, who demanded that GLAAD cease and desist from rewriting the transsexual narrative into a gender queer and cross dresser agenda. Transsexual advocates explained that trangenderism is about deconstructing gender, activities, behaviors, lifestyles, fetishes, drag queen stage acts and or/ dismantling the gender binary. Janet is absolutly none of these identities or lifestyles. She is a heterosexual woman who was simply born with a medical condition in which she had corrected and treated ten years ago. She is not a “3rd gender” or gay male drag queen. She is a woman. Period. We ask GLAAD, the gay establishment, transgender ideology and the far right to respect this.

On Thursday, May 19th MAGNET reached out to GLAAD asking them to retract their inaccurate labeling of Janet because the transgender term misgenders and objectifies women born transsexual, jeopardizes their medical legitimacy, impinges on their civil rights, confuses the public, gay appropriates them and invalidates their womanhood. GLAAD continued on with their misrepresentation.

On May 20th, with GLAAD still choosing to enforce transgender ideology onto Janet, MAGNET organizer Ashley Love wrote an open letter to Marie Claire thanking them for doing right by Janet and other Americans born with transsexualism, which she posted on Marie Claire’s website under Janet’s article and on Love’s blog Trans Forming Media.

Later that morning GLAAD contacted Janet to ask her the name of her condition, although she had already said in multiple media outlets that she was of transsexual experience. Janet again told them she was of transsexual experience, after which GLAAD edited their website to accurately refer to her as such.

Ashley Love responds to GLAAD’s edit,

“MAGNET applauds GLAAD for admitting their mistake by editing their coverage to respect the reality of Janet Mock’s medical condition transsexualism. We hope this development leads to GLAAD reforming their media guide to accurately represent Americans with transsexualism, for as it stands now, the guide co-opts, misgenders, de-medicalizes, offends and invalidates their reality. We acknowledge GLAAD’s small step forward, though much work needs to be done changing the problematic way the gay and transgender establishments depict transsexualism. We ask people to keep their sociopolitical agenda out of the doctor’s offices and narratives of human beings with transsexualism. “

MAGNET asks people with transsexualism to please contact GLAAD executive director Jarrett Barrios to thank GLAAD for finally making an effort to satisfy the thousands of Americans with transsexualism who protest being called transgender. Contact Jarrett Barrios: barrios@glaad.org

We are confident that this new development will lead to more discussions which will bring about the authentic and non-sociopolitical representation of the transsexual medical condition by the LGBT establishment.