Trans Media Action needs you for just one hour!
If you’ve been on Twitter during Channel 4′s series My Transsexual Summer, you’ll see that the hashtags (#transsummer and #mytranssexualsummer) have been going wild with comments, both positive and negative, about the trans community during the shows.
Trans Media Action is asking you if you’d like to volunteer an hour of your time during the last programme this Tuesday 29th to take part in a little experiment. We’re looking for 20 people and we want to see if we can generate some awareness about trans issues and our project by trawling through the hashtags and replying to people with a link to a brief message from us.
Here’s why.
The massive reach of a prime-time Channel 4 programme gives us a unique opportunity to look at how people feel and respond online in real time when they hear trans stories.
Some of the more horrific comments we’ve seen aren’t for the faint-hearted and we don’t necessarily want to engage with people who are downright abusive. But many negative comments have their basis in ignorance rather than malice, like, “these chaps are the most manly looking trannys (sic) I’ve ever seen, you’re fooling nobody mate #mytranssexualsummer”.
Conversation
We’d like to see if it’s possible to start a conversation with the negative commenters by replying to them and sending them to a link on our website telling them more about trans people. We don’t think we’ll change everyone’s minds necessarily, but it’s a good opportunity to try!
We also want to respond to the positive comments from people who might be new to trans, like this one: “Call me all the names you want but I’m really loving #mytranssexualsummer. I love how they are not afraid to be themselves” or “Really have fallen in love with this show. these people are just so real and so inspiring #transsummer”.
We want to thank these people for their support, follow them from our account and point them in the direction of our website and more information. We think that if more people feel involved with the movement towards acceptance and equality for trans people, the better chance we have of getting there sooner.
Details:
- All you need is a telly and access to Twitter on Tuesday 29th from 10pm-11pm
- You can do it from the comfort of your own home
- You’ll be tweeting from the @transmediaaction twitter account and not your own for your own privacy and protection
- There’ll be 2 groups – 1 replying to the negative comments and 1 replying to the positive ones and following them
- You’ll take 5 mins afterwards or so to let us know how you got on
- If you’re interested, contact nathalie@onroadmedia.org.uk with Twitter Experiment in the subject heading
Thanks!
