Washington: Gov’t-funded campaign targets anti-trans bigotry

BY NATASHA BARSOTTI – The DC Office of Human Rights (OHR) is spearheading a government-funded campaign to combat anti-transgender discrimination, according to the Washington Blade.

Two trans women, two trans men and a person who identifies as genderqueer will each appear in one of five ads to be placed around the city in the fall.

OHR director Gustavo Velasquez said the campaign will focus on three areas: increasing understanding of transgender and gender-non-conforming people, reducing incidents of discrimination in the US capital, and encouraging more community members to report such incidents.

The campaign’s unveiling will take place more than a year after DC Mayor Vincent Gray announced an employment program for trans residents, the Blade reports.

The city’s decision to take leadership on the issue by engaging in preventive education is an exciting step, trans activist Ruby Corado said in the report.

Landing image: DC Office of Human Rights

Natasha Barsotti is originally from Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. She had high aspirations of representing her country in Olympic Games sprint events, but after a while the firing of the starting gun proved too much for her nerves. So she went off to university instead. Her first professional love has always been journalism. After pursuing a Master of Journalism at UBC , she began freelancing at Xtra West — now Xtra Vancouver — in 2006, becoming a full-time reporter there in 2008.

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