Out Boulder has begun a new campaign which is intender to humanize the image of transgender Coloradans.
The Boulder Rapid Transit buses in Boulder County will carry advertising designed to illustrate the humanity of Boulder's transgender residents.
Modeled after a similar campaign in Washington, DC, it is expected that 806,000 riders will be reached by he advertising.
There has been trans-activism in Boulder County for a long time. But there has never been an assertive campaign like this for our community. I don't think policy is the end-all. We have non-discrimination laws that include transgender people in Colorado, but that doesn't mean that discrimination doesn't continue to happen.
We're trying to change hearts and minds.
--Mardi Moore, Out Boulder
The campaign and viewership is crucial in having people realize that trans folk are all around them, and deserving of equality just like everybody else.
There's a chance it could bring out the hate in people, but it's a risk we're all willing to take if it means the younger generation facing fewer obstacles than we have.
--Morgan Seamont
Seamont currently serves as the assistant director of CU's GLBTQ Resource Center, providing students of the LGBT community with support. And while, like Seamont, the other participants hope to achieve the same result, their backgrounds and how that influenced their decision to advertise their faces and identities to the general public are very different.
Nicole Garcia is an ordained minister at Mount Calvary Lutheran Church, a blogger, and a licensed psychoherapist.
I don't want anything more than anyone else. I just want the opportunity to be successful in my chosen profession as a minister, and just to be accepted and valued by my family and friends.
Ravyn Wayne was not officially out at work until the advertising campaign began being designed.
For a lot of transgender people who decide to come out at work, they find themselves to be good employees on Friday, and bad employees when they come back on Monday. But I think that the impact we want to have on the community is that even though we're unique, it doesn't mean we're a part of the population that should be ostracized.
--Wayne