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March 31 is International Transgender Day of Visibility. A good moment to take a look at transgender people in advertising.

Transgender people have been in the spotlight more and more lately. They are also increasingly seen in print advertising, online and TV commercials. This can be a celebrity who supports the brand, or it can be about giving attention to the target group in the context of Corporate Social Responsibility. Sometimes as a joke at the expense of a trans person – which almost always fails. An overview.

“Transgender” is a collective term for people for whom the categories ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are not self-evident. They represent the T in LGBT: that letter was added to the acronym about 20 years ago. This happened not because this group faces the same ‘problems’ as the L, H or B, but because they belong to a minority that in itself would not be strong enough to make a fist – but their struggle is comparable to that of the others. The principle is that of solidarity that exists often in the LGBT community (while often it doesn’t, but that’s a story for another time). Some sources cite a prevalence of 0.1 percent, others 0.6 percent. A very small group that, because of its size alone, does not meet the ‘cold’ assessment criteria for successful target group segmentation. In addition, these people often have a socio-economic disadvantage, so they will not be approached quickly either in terms of prosperity.

Nikkie Tutorials

In the last five years, in particular, a lot of attention has been paid to transgender people, also because the other members of the LGBT community have made much progress – so the battle can be shifted. Celebrities like Nikkie de Jager (aka YouTube star Nikkie Tutorials), Elliot Page (and earlier Caitlyn Jenner) came out as transgender. The media also make TV-series and documentaries about transgender people, and politicians are – slowly – strengthening their legal position.

So: a very small population group with a social disadvantage. The subject is also somewhat loaded, as it is often misunderstood. There is a chance that by showing a trans person in your campaign, you will offend larger groups. Why should you, as a brand, focus on that? The answer is, as I wrote in a previous article: “Doing the right thing”. As a company you show that you are socially involved, that you value diversity and inclusivity. That you do not organize your communication on purely financial grounds, but also for human reasons. This contributes to your brand values, especially among millennials, but also LGBT people and their network (the so called “PFLAG effect”).

Celebrities

The use of famous transgender people in advertisements has happened quite a lot. Our own beautiful Valentijn de Hingh is a DJ, model and writer. She has walked shows for Maison Margiela and Tom Ford and appeared in a campaign for H&M’s sister brand & Other Stories. In the video The Gaze & Other Stories she tells her story. The other model, Hari Nef, is also trans, as are photographer Amos Mac, stylist Love Bailey and makeup artist Nina Poon. Together they discuss the role of gender in advertising and fashion.

Pop and style icon Amanda Lepore appeared in the mid-1990s in a dynamic Armani ad from top director David LaChapelle – whose muse she is – featuring a very young, naked Ryan Philippe. LaChapelle also directed her in an over-the-top campy video for MAC Cosmetics, in which she couldn’t get enough of that bright pink lipstick. She was also the face of Mego Jeans, MTV, Jawbone bluetooth and Jigsaw, and ran a campaign with Swatch – boldly using the nickname (Time) Tranny.

Laverne Cox, who rose to fame in Orange Is The New Black, became a much sought-after fashion model and featured in Smirnoff’s campaigns. Olympic medalist Caitlyn Jenner was a protagonist in an H&M campaign. That company had just been boycotted by some reli-mothers because of hiring a transgender model in an earlier campaign. Only those mothers had misunderstood and they mistook a female boxing champion for trans, while they overlooked the real transgender woman Hari Nef.

The stylish, Ferrari-red commercial of Toyota from Japan let to some confusion. Spoiler alert: this is not a transgender person, but an androgynous model Stav Strashko – yet another dot on the spectrum. So was Andrej Pejić, who, in addition to Marc Jacobs in 2011, also made a high-profile campaign for Dutch retailer Hema (“Even a man gets an impressive cleavage with the mega push-up bra from Hema”). Pejić was known as the very first ‘completely’ androgynous model until he came out as a transgender woman in 2013, after which she became one of the most recognizable transgender models in the world as Andreja Pejić.

Nike

In 2016, American clothing brand Nike introduced us to an extraordinary triathlete, transgender man Chris Mosier. He was determined to earn a spot on the US Olympic team for the Rio Games. As part of Nike’s ‘Unlimited’ campaign, we saw Mosier push himself to the limit in the ‘Unlimited Courage’ video. He did make the national team for the 2016 World Cup, but the IOC rules on transgender people prevented him from participating in the Games in Rio. As an activist, he campaigned to change those rules, and he succeeded—so he could compete in the 2020 Olympics qualifiers. He became the first openly transgender male athlete to ever compete in an Olympic trial alongside other men; however, he was unable to finish the race due to injury. In the meantime, he became the first trans athlete to appear in the ESPN ‘Body Issue’.

Three years after Unlimited Courage we saw him again in Nike’s ‘Nobody wins alone’, which also featured a number of other top athletes. He has since co-founded The Chris Mosier Project with Nike, a branded documentary as inspiration for other (transgender) athletes.

Gillette

After the ‘toxic masculinity’ fiasco, Gillette had something to make up for, but instead of returning to the core business, Gillette happily set foot on the next slippery path. In the commercial ‘First Shave, the story of Samson #MyBestSelf‘ we see how Samson – technically called post-op female to male transgender person – shaves for the first time, with help from his father. Endearing, but also daring, given the dire situation Gillette was already in.

Gillette took it one step further with transgender activist Jazz Jennings, one of the youngest known trans individuals in the world, who told her story to Barbara Walters in 20/20 at the age of seven. She became the spokesperson of Venus, wondering ‘Do I Shave My Legs?‘ in the #MySkinMyWay campaign.

Ikea and others

And there are dozens of examples, because it did and does happen more often than you might think that a transgender person, whether or not in that role, is featured in a campaign.

Ikea has shown all the letters in LGBT in their advertisements, and the T was rather unfortunate in an advertisement from Thailand in 2013. This even led to protests from the Thai Transgender Alliance. Much earlier they had the French clip ‘A woman, or nearly‘ with a not yet fully transformed woman and it was quite funny, but the Spanish commercial ‘Redecorate Your Life‘ from 1999 verry much had the right tone, including wedgie jokes in the end. Ikea, by the way, can afford to make jokes like this, because it has shown itself a loyal Ally for decades. Such jokes are not easily accepted from others.

The Argentine Banco Provincia ran a remarkable commercial in 2007, in which an old man comes to apologize to a transgender hairdresser.

Pantene

As far as I’m concerned, Pantène is the champion in this area. This brand has been a subsidiary of chemical giant Procter & Gamble since 1985 and is especially famous for the 1989 campaign with the pay-off ‘Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful’. Supermodels Kelly LeBrock and Iman became famous for this phrase. There was criticism from feminists (‘irritating narcissism’), but that can’t always hurt.

The parent company is committed to diversity and inclusivity, as one of the 12 founders of the first global alliance for LGBT equality at work, the Campaign for Human Rights. But Pantène itself also gained fame, especially in the field of trans people. It started in Asia, first in the Philippines in 2018 with the ‘Stronger Now‘ campaign. A beautiful feel-good commercial that stated: “celebrating the strength in everyone, regardless of gender”. The Stronger Now video went viral, mainly because Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg gave it her ‘Award of the Day’: ‘This is one of the most powerful videos I have ever seen illustrating how when women and men do the same things, they are seen in completely different ways. Really worth watching.’

In the same year in Thailand they had the “See Beauty, Not Gender” campaign. Spokesperson was Poyd Treechada, Thailand’s most famous transgender beauty. Pantene Thailand and agency GREYnJ United wanted to celebrate the beauty of all people, regardless of gender. The emotional storytelling shows that transgender people are now more accepted than ever in Thailand, but there is still a public stigma attached to them. The video was submitted to the Cannes Festival.

After this, Pantène had one or more campaigns every year, often with the hashtag #BeautifuLGBTQ: in 2019 “Don’t Hate Me Because I’m BeautifuLGBTQ+” which built on the pay-off of the old campaign from 1989. Furthermore, “Coming home should be #BeautifuLGBTQ” to support LGBT people who have to go to a not-so-welcome parental home for the holidays. This was a great campaign together with GLAAD, which consisted of 5 videos that also featured the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles.

In Europe, in honor of LGBT History Month, we saw #HairHasNoGender, about which Vogue Italia was wildly enthusiastic: “Coco Chanel reminds us: ‘A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life’. It is true for women, but also for men. In fact, hair does not and should not have a gender. This is where the new Pantene campaign is part of The Power of Hair initiative. The Power to transform launched by the brand on a European level with one goal: to celebrate the diversity of each person.” It was an extensive campaign with a main commercial, five individual clips and a ‘behind-the-scenes’ movie. Brazilian supermodel Lea T played a leading role.

And then there was this video for International Transgender Day of Visibility: “Sawyer | Ashley on the power of visibility”. We see two lesbian moms, Ellie and Ashley, talk about their transgender daughter with pride and compassion. These ladies also spoke in the previous campaign. By the way, it’s very clever how Pantène still manages to incorporate hair as a theme in all these commercials!

Conclusion: note that in almost all of these cases, the advertiser’s move was very daring. The criticism was loud: from ‘political agendas’ and ‘you have lost me as a customer’ to really disgusting and very hurtful comments. Sure, they’re social media trolls and you shouldn’t worry too much about them. But the campaigns mentioned were almost all intended to be branded, to show support for a very small but vulnerable population group. Good intentions can also go wrong, we saw that with Gillette, but I see an increase in visibility, and with it acceptance. As happened with the LGB, this will also contribute to the emancipation of and understanding for transgender fellow human beings.

Representation –> visibility –> normalization –> tolerance –> acceptance –> respect.