Visualizing Trans Coverage
A new tool, the Trans News Initiative, draws from data to reveal patterns and proportions.
In 2023, during March Madness, Bud Light hired Dylan Mulvaney, a trans TikTok star, for an ad campaign. Right-wing media went berserk; conservatives staged a boycott. According to findings collected by the Trans News Initiative, a data visualization tool released this week, there was more coverage of the story than there was about pronoun-related firings, the rise of an anti-LGBTQ+ activist organization, or the passage of anti-trans legislation in Florida—all of which happened the same year.
The Trans News Initiative, which tracks coverage of trans communities for the benefit of journalists, media organizations, and researchers, was developed by the Trans Journalists Association (TJA) in association with Polygraph—the data team behind The Pudding, a digital publication focused on data-driven stories—and the University of Miami’s School of Communication. The result is a collection of 190,000 articles organized under thirteen themes—ideology and culture wars, censorship and free speech, and access to public spaces, among others—spanning 2020 to 2025, showing how publications have covered trans stories over time. “We wanted a tool that would be a mirror for journalists,” Kae Petrin, a cofounder and the president of TJA, said.
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