“in 2015, shortly before Broadly went live, journalist Diana Tourjée pitched us a story on tucking. When the piece, a humorous and candid guide for non-op trans women and Diana’s first article for Broadly, was ready for publication, the editors searched for a photo to accompany the article. The words “transgender person in underwear” and variations on that theme returned zero results in the stock photo library we used. Eventually, the editors landed on an image of a young man’s lower body, showing his legs beneath a pair of sheer pantyhose.
Immediately after publishing, Diana, who became a staff member on Broadly a few months later, reached out to request we change the image, pointing out how insensitive and harmful it is to depict a trans woman with a photo of a cisgender man. The editors changed and apologized, calling the error an “oversight.” It’s embarrassing to think back on this moment, and it’s still frustrating to look at that article now — the replacement image is of a cisgender woman in shorts, with her head cropped off.
In the years since, Broadly editors have worked diligently to think more thoughtfully and critically about how we represent trans and non-binary people in our work. But even at our best, we have been limited by the stock imagery available to us. Today, we’re launching The Gender Spectrum Collection, a stock photo library of over 180 images of 15 trans and non-binary models, shot by artist and photographer Zackary Drucker, and made available to the public for free.”
Read the full piece here
AWESOME RESOURCE ALERT!!!
FREE STOCK PHOTO LIBRARY FEATURING TRANS AND NONBINARY MODELS!!!
