Filling the Knowledge Gap

he could center the stories of LGBTQ plus people. In this conversation, Tony and I discuss, you know, in a lot of ways, the negativity, the negative, toxic headlines that we have seen, the five hundred plus anti LGBTQ bills that were released across the country, but then juxtaposed that with the fact that acceptance for LGBTQ people are rising, the fact that more people now know a trans person

than they did ten years ago. And I lament to Tony that I remember, you know, when the number of people who knew a trans person was in the teens.

And we talk about the knowledge gap and how you may know somebody who is a member of the LGBTQ community, but do you understand and are you educated on their lived experiences and what folks are up against on a regular basis, So we talk about the role of media, the role of GLAD to fill that knowledge gap with truth and facts and narrative to dispose of this stereotypes, the fear, and the hate that the MAGA supremacists want

to fill that gap with. It's the reasons why they get rid of the books so that you cannot learn and educate yourself, so that you are a blank canvas for their hate. So Tony and I get into a really great conversation about what can be done. You know, what are the highs and lows of this movement and how do we continue to advance forward given all that has been stacked against us. My conversation with Tony Morrison from GLAD is coming up next, folks. I am very

excited to welcome to OKF Daily. I believe for the very first time Tony Morrison, who is an Emmy and GLAD Award earning journalists serving as Senior Director of Communications for GLAD, the world's leading LGBTQ media advocacy organization, that I've had the pleasure of working with and by and being a part of the GLAD family and community for

over the years. So Tony start out you know with me by painting the picture of kind of where LGBTQ people representation in media found itself in twenty twenty three, before we start looking ahead.

is at an all time high. Ninety six percent of Americans say that schools should be accepting and affirming of all students, notwithstanding whatever backgrounds they come from. Super majorities of Americans are for equality and inclusion, and I think a lot of what we're seeing is definitely this loud minority that seems like they're getting louder and are being platformed in certain ways that might be irresponsible, I would say, in the media platforms that we are working in and with.

But acceptance is at an all time high, and when it comes to represent representation and visibility in media, which is glad's primary focus, is that the studios and film studios and television networks and our journal across the country are hungry and wanting to tell queer stories and intersectional stories accurately and fairly. The want is there. Obviously, it's very nuanced once you get into the corporate allyship conversation,

the Pride month of it all. But for the most part, I do just want to call on first here that acceptance is at an all time high. And even just to name check Pride real quick, this year we saw a huge amount of small town prides pop up for the first time.

child's you know, preferred pronouns. And so when you say that acceptance is up, when you talk about the fact that there were a lot of small town prides and not just big ones, you know, and that acceptance in Hollywood is also up, you know, how do we how do you break through? I guess with the good right in order to make it very clear case that this is a lie squeaky minority, but that they don't represent the majority of us.

LGBTQ people. Very interesting space because the LGBTQ community is an intersexual, intersectional one of all communities, right, But you know, just ten years ago, like only eight percent of Americans knew of a transgender person in their lives. Ye, and while today we're finding that that number is up to thirty percent, in that ten year span, more Americans still to feel like they've seen a ghost upwards of forty percent, then feel that they have met a transgender person thirty percent.

So while the progress and you just mentioned this a bit ago, the progress is not perfect. Progress works in this way, especially in the culture shifting space right in the heart and mind changing space that we work in. But I just have to call out too. I mean, it's having these one on one conversations within our own community and being able to be part of the solution rather than looking for solutions. And while acceptance is high,

the knowledge gap is low. So we have a huge amount of people who want to do good and do right by their communities, their neighbors, their family members. But the underlying issue, I feel, the undercurrent here is a lot of individuals don't feel equipped to have these conversations. We have our homework in the advocacy space. I just saw some numbers quite recently about fifty percent of Americans feel but half Americans feel that they're knowledgeable about trans

and non binary people. My question is where are the other half of Americans learning about these communities from. Yep, it's through the media obviously, yeah, and the content we consume. But who's flooding the airwaves right now. It's it's polarizing politicians, it's misinformation. So that's where we come in to be able to equip our partners and our journalists and people who want to do that good in society to do it right and accurately and tell our stories fairly. You know.

I'm so happy to hear that the number has risen over the last ten years of people who know a trans or non binary person, because I remember when that number was in the teens, right, And you know, most recently, I can attest with my own personal story that I had a conversation, you know, with my parents recently, with them saying, you know, I don't know the right things to say, but I'm trying to understand the trans community, like what is right? What can I ask? You know?

But they wanted to have the conversation, but they also wanted to they wanted to have it in a safe space where they could make mistakes. And so what does it look like for those people that want to engage but are fearful so they say nothing?

what is setting us back? Or the fear of not asking the question is what's setting us back, because that withholds the conversation and the answers and the solutions for a lot of this. If we are just able to overcome this fear within ourselves and just ask the questions that we are afraid to ask, I think we will

find a lot of peace. I'm going to use the word piece there, because a lot of what we have is this unrest whatever however that resonates with people that unrest within themselves, it's unrest with understanding an experience unlike their own. It's okay to ask questions. We have to ask the questions, and we have to be able to say and to really say in a full scale i am not asking this correctly, but will you allow me to ask it and help me through the right way to ask it.

that place, that knowledge gap that you're talking about. In that gap goes sphere right in that gap go yes, and they feed off of that gap. And so when I look at the importance in the role of media, it is to fill in in the place where there are holes. But when you have a media that is now so interested and invested in creating the gap, right, making the work even harder. What do places like GLAD do, right?

Because the media is very much as responsible for where we are currently in this country as the politicians that put us there.

do that full time. So a lot of what I was doing in the network, in the network news space was a creating a space for career journalists to be of resource to one of one another and to create community.

And what we found was in this kind of legacy journal Then this legacy journalist space was a really i will say antiquated and you'll at this it's like, you know, journalists can't have opinions, tell both sides right down the middle, all of these all of these things which does make sense, right, But in the world we are living in, we're not. The question is no longer do we hold people accountable? It's how do we hold people accountable? And that threads

out to outdated laws, outdated legislation, outdated ideas. And then the closest journalist space And what I'm kind of getting to here is for me, when I met my ceiling in terms of I wanted to tell these stories, our stories full time and go over to come over to glad. Part of that in my former space was encouraging network leadership to allow journalists and reporters to infuse their experiences

in the storytelling. And that's not biased, that's not opinion, that my own lived experience can tell the story in a way that connect with an audience, connects with people, connects with the stories that we need answers to in an explosively expanded way than just telling a script, rereading

a script, write quote, unquote down the middle. So a lot of the work we're doing at GLAD is not you know, grading inclusivity the quality of inclusivity of content per se, but we're we're really after the visceral experience of the content. Can this content shift culture by affecting policy? Can this story or piece do that? And of course including does it emote emotion and is it thought provoking?

So GLAD deals with all of that space also, but especially the training and advocacy piece from activists across the country and being able to take those people in want who are hungry to do more, who are already set advocates and activists in their own communities, and being able to do everything for media, train them, to counsel them, to connect them with medium, the right and the right folks in their communities to tell their stories and apply

their lived experiences to quote unquote issues because at the end of the day, LGBTQ people are not issues, they are people.

like for me, you know, I get this. I get this question a lot when I when I do storytelling trainings, when I work with different folks and they're just like, well, you know, isn't it the job? Or when I speak to journalism students, isn't it the job of us to

be neutral? And I said, your job is to tell the truth And I don't know how you tell the truth with excluding your own lived experience from what it is that you're covering, right, Like, that isn't an opinion to your point, It is providing color and context, right. And what I what I feel like we miss out too by doing that is treating the audience as adults,

right that can handle nuance. And so I when you talk about you know, LGBTQ people being people and not just numbers or statistics or problems to be solved, I think what is missing to in media is that nuance. And when we're talking beyond because you were in you know, in the news business. You know we're talking about clips, right, like we need the clip, we need the two minute clip.

But when we're going beyond that and you actually have the ability to tell stories in documentaries, in series, in you know, in in film, what do you think is missing? You know, Tony, that need that we need to expand on, that, we need to work on that. It isn't just about the numbers of LGBTQ people that are present in front or behind the camera, because I think both are important, But what else do you think is missing? To really expand on the nuance?

person or idea is transphobic, XYZ is racist. We have to get to a place all of our storytellers out there, content creators, we have to have the courage to call things as they are, period, and that is actually journalism. Being neutral is not journalism. That's irresponsible journalism to me, but being able to call things out for what and who they are and what those things stand for and the realities for what is at stake. I am not you know, I'm not a I'm not a policy gay

by any means. And I know i've again, I just I call on, I've been name checking legacy, legacy, legacy, but at these legacy networks, I say, I still say. We also we love our polls, and I'm like, I'm sorry, but I've never answered any of these phone calls ever in my life. I don't even know anybody who has ever. So I'm like, who are these people? Number one? And who really does this poll represent? And they're so calculated, in formulaic and careful, you know, and how they portray

certain numbers on the air. I get that, but I think we rely a lot on polling numbers, and I have to just call this out as we go into an election year, we rely so much, not on just the direction of a campaign, but we let polling dictate our storytelling now yes, versus going out and talking to the people or leaning on lived experience to actually dictate the facts and what is actually at stake versus really a narrative made up by numbers, you know.

you know, a tool of fascism. So what what is Glad's role and what are you all preparing for as we head into an election cycle?

we so bored? Like that? Those are the issues at stake, Like like what people are trying to put food on the table and we are stuck on a less than one percent of a community that needs to be legislated again, so like so that's my aside personally, but humanizing the

queer experience is number one for us. And I think all of the queer organizations are really having a coming together and I feel like at times there's there's a little bit of a I'm gonna say turf wars, and I know many will hear this, but there's the idea that all the orgs have their own lane and we do our own thing. We don't talk to each other. But what's going to really come to a head here is having unified message and being able to come together

and bring all our resources together. You know you have Human Rights Campaign who you know they do policy prevor Project is mental health. GLAD creates content, representation and experiences around policy and mental health and all those things. Right, so when we come together, we are an unstoppable force. But as you mentioned before, there are people who are

pouring millions of dollars into that knowledge gap. That's their mo You have your groups like Moms for Liberty, your Alliance Defending Freedom, who are getting these insane cases into the Supreme Court. So there's millions of dollars coming up to bat against us. But I think also what you're seeing is you know we're going after Moms for Liberty like you will be exposed. We know who you are and we're coming for you. And it's so unfair to see how much a lot of these groups have been platformed.

But I'm really encouraged by gen Z and Jen Alpha, just to name two generations. We just had a couple of weeks ago here Xander Morricks in South Florida, who is a GLAD twenty under twenty alumnus, just said some powerful, powerful stuff to one of the Moms for Liberty. Uh yeh, scandals. I mean, these are things. I'm like, I could not come up with this stuff, but these are these are people who are empowered to make change in a way

that I haven't seen in my lifetime. And we all get into this space and advocacy for our own reasons and experiences, but to see the kind of drive and the kind of ways they are utilizing media as a vehicle for change by using their experience, their voice, their story is really something that blows me away. And within Glad's plan of action is really being able to support those people and those voices and instead of doing it

on our own. I think a lot of times, you know, I always say acceptances on all of us, and acceptance is really not that hard. I tell my team here all the time. We can do everything, but we can empower people and guide them to do and be their best and to equip them to go out into the

world and be the change they want to see. I think for us, it's going to be humanizing the queer experience and equipping our community to really go the distance and connect with people in ways that people might be afraid, might have been afraid to in the past.