Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention and the City of Toronto launch educational campaign to address transphobia
The Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention (Black CAP) and the City of Toronto launched a public awareness campaign this morning to encourage Torontonians to challenge their perceptions of transgender and non-binary people – specifically trans youth of colour.The campaign was created in consultation with Black CAP's Community Advisory Committee (CAC) which is comprised entirely of racialized transgender youth. The creative concept starts the public conversation with the most basic fact required to begin to understand trans and non-binary Torontonians – the difference between gender and sex.The campaign, which features real Torontonian racialized trans youth and uses transit ads and social media, was created by the social impact agency PUBLIC Inc. The goal of the campaign is to educate and encourage respectful and meaningful dialogue about transgender and non-binary individuals. The campaign also seeks to empower and motivate trans people to get involved in educating others about trans-specific issues.The campaign website http://www.torontoforall.ca/ provides information and resources to educate Torontonians about non-binary people and encourage residents to recognize the systemic biases that trans people, specifically trans youth of colour, face in their daily life in order to foster more understanding and advocacy amongst the cis gender community. (Cis gender individuals are those whose gender identity matches the sex that they were assigned at birth.)This is the fourth phase of the City's Toronto for All campaign which has an overall goal of creating a Toronto that says "no" to all forms of discrimination and racism. Phase 1 ran in the summer of 2016 and focused on Islamophobia. Phase 2 was launched in the fall of 2016 and addressed anti-Black racism. Phase 3 ran in the spring and addressed the discrimination of homeless men. All campaign phases have successfully encouraged conversations among Toronto residents and media regarding the relevant issues.