Overview
Around one in 300 Canadians identify as transgender or nonbinary, according to the 2021 census. Despite their presence in Canadian society, openly trans people have long been excluded from creative industries and have not had the opportunity to tell their own stories. Stories by non-trans creatives about trans people have too often been sensationalizing and cliché, with a focus on the details of medical transition and accounts of feeling like one is “in the wrong body.” Telling one’s own story and having decision-making authority over stories about one’s community is a crucial human right and essential to the creation of a just and multicultural society.
Too often people think that trans people have hardly made any films. In fact, trans people have created thousands of films spanning various genres such as horror, comedy, romance, documentary, animation, drama, and more. They’re just hard to find. That’s where the Transgender Media Portal comes in!
The Transgender Media Portal is similar to IMDb but it’s exclusively focused on highlighting the work of trans+* creators. Jump through the Portal to explore thousands of trans-made films, television shows, and online videos! Our primary focus is on artists from Turtle Island (North America). We are particularly enthusiastic about showcasing the works of Black, Indigenous, POC (people of color), intersex, and Deaf and Disabled filmmakers.
The goals of the Transgender Media Portal are to:
- Make trans-made films more available to educators, festival programmers, and trans filmmakers and organizers; and
- To enable new kinds of research questions about trans filmmaking in Canada and the United States, tracing how trans-made cinema has changed over time and has developed differently in different places.
The Transgender Media Portal is an ongoing project developed by a dedicated team of student scholars, artists, designers, and developers at the Transgender Media Lab at Carleton University.
This project provides Carleton students the opportunity to bridge the STEM-Humanities divide. In addition to enhancing students’ research skills and comprehension of trans film history, the project enables students to develop project management, linked data, data modeling, data management, community engagement, and dissemination skills, as well as experience with user- and community-responsive software development. These skills will prepare them for careers in arts management, tech, the media industry, community organizing, and academia.
The Rollout
Your donation will support the operations of Transgender Media Portal by funding expenses such as student researcher salaries, student researcher travel for research and conference presentations, community events, and lab training on topics including anti-oppression facilitation, conflict resolution, accessibility, and digital safety.
The Impact
Ultimately, our goal is to build a more trans-inclusive media culture in Canada, propelling the country’s leadership in this rapidly evolving field.