Project “Hortensia” (“Hydrangea”): A Collective Campaign to Support Trans Youth.
The Global Narrative Hive is honoured to share a translation of a reflective blog by Lainterseccion.net, which was originally published on their website in February 2023 in Spanish. Lainterseccion.net is building a space from which to create collective narratives, share tools and learn to communicate in order to move towards a better future. At the Hive, we have been proud to collaborate with them to share their experiences and knowledge with our network.
If you have been following Laintersección.net’s activities over the last few months, you will know that we have been involved in a collective campaign to support trans youth. You can read the information we have previously published here.
The process took place during the debate around the so-called Trans Law in Spain and the dissemination phase of the campaign coincided with the approval of the text in the Spanish Congress of Deputies. However, our aim was to create a dialogue outside of this legislative confrontation: to reinforce narratives of empathy and support for trans people.
Objectives
This is what we aimed for with the contents of the campaign:
- Make visible support for young trans people (14–23 years old) by cis/straight “allies”.
- Generate empathy on behalf of cis/hetero people towards young trans people by identifying with these “allies”.
- Facilitate connections between potential allies and the resources or initiatives of trans organisations or content creators (link empathy to action).
Target audience
Our purpose was to activate allies in showing their support for trans youth. Therefore, we addressed cis people between 25 and 54 years old who had generally positive views towards LGTBI+ people, but with some doubts about trans or non-binary people. People who were not far off, but needed some additional motivation to start supporting them explicitly. We focused especially on those who had direct contact with young transgender people: teachers, parents and cis students.
Values
These are the values that should underpin the contents of the campaign:
- Respect for people. If you respect others, you accept them and defend their rights (avoiding “othering”: all people deserve respect due to the fact that they are people).
- Equality and fairness. Whether or not this is true, our audience believes that we all already have the same rights, but admits that there are circumstances that hinder trans people from accessing them.
- Empathy and care (values that, according to what we have found in previous research, work best for women).
- Mutual understanding: The need to understand different realities and the current world.
Narrative strategy: saying thank you
In the focus groups and digital narrative testing we did beforehand, we found a powerful type of message that connected with many people: saying thank you. We decided to focus the narrative strategy on the idea of gratitude: giving thanks for the support, empathy, learning opportunities and enrichment that diversity brings. To do this, we told happy stories, stories of hope or success, which not only inspired but also served to showcase forms of support. We highlighted the value of relationships between cis and trans and non-binary people, making cis allies visible to encourage other cis people to identify with them.
Creative idea: Hortensia Project (Hydrangea Project)
The creative team got to work from there and brought us this proposal: Proyecto Hortensia, a collective hug for trans people. It materialised in a collection of thank you videos that were disseminated on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok and in a podcast for those who wanted to get closer to the reality of trans people. We created a space for trans and cis people to meet, where gratitude was the driver of empathy.
And why a hydrangea? Hydrangeas come in different colours and when you plant their seeds you don’t know what colour they will turn out. The growth of a hydrangea is a story of diversity with a beautiful and happy ending.
Contents of the campaign
The podcast “Gracias” consists of a series of three 20–30 minute episodes in which trans comedian Elsa Ruiz interviews a mother and father, an educator and a friend of trans people.
In addition, we produced a series of five thank you videos in which cis and trans people told the viewer how getting to know each other had helped them value diversity, understand the world better or feel better about their identity. This video (in Spanish) is a summary.
We also organised meetings between trans activists and their supporters, whom they thanked by giving them bouquets of hydrangeas. We recorded this on video.
On the other hand, several LGTBI+ organisations, mothers and fathers of trans youth, influencers, and content creators joined the campaign by creating their own thank you videos or replicating those that had already been published. You can see the contents on Instagram.
Positive stories, emotion and unexpected allies are key to supporting trans and non-binary young people
Through research we carried out to design our collective campaign in support of trans and non-binary youth, we learned a lot about prevailing narratives. Our aim now is to also use this learning to point out particular narratives that can be helpful in activating allies.
