Transgender Rights
Team Member Name: Sabre Bunn-Mathews
Publication: Philippines Today
Date: 07/01/2015
Cartoonist: Angelo Lopez, U.S.
Title of Cartoon: Transgender Rights
Cartoon # 11
What action is taking place in the cartoon?
What is the context?
In this cartoon we see a group of people. Some are
men, some are women, and one we know is a transgender because of the labeling on her shirt naming
her as Geena Rocero. The individuals are breaking
through the door which stands for the closet, and
holding a flag that says transgender rights. There is
also a key which represents the lock that transgenders were under and their inability to speak freely
about being transgender. Also, you will notice a
remembrance on one of the individuals shirts that
says “Remember Jennifer Laude”.
Geena Rocero is a transgender woman, activist, and
Filipina model. She is the founder of Gender Proud,
a movement that aims to change the global perception of and conversation about transgender individuals (CNN, 2015). Jennifer Laude was a transgender
woman who was killed in October, 2014, by a U.S.
marine after he found out she was a transgender in a
hotel room in the Red Light District (Diebel, 2015).
Tone of the cartoon:
1) Positive framing of the issue
2) The framing is supportive to supporters
3) The framing is opposed to opponents
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What “reality” is constructed/framed about
your issue?
The reality that is framed in this cartoon is that
people are sick and tired of being uncomfortable
and hiding from their identities. As Geena Rocero
says, “I was not born a boy, I was assigned “boy”
at birth” (CNN, 2015). There is a vast majority of
transgender men and women who stand by Geena’s
comment. Transgenders are breaking out of the
locked closet (framing by metaphor) that kept them
quiet for so many years in fear of being terrorized
by the lack of non-discrimination laws. In 2015,
there were more transgender deaths reported than
any other year (Atkinson, 2015). Of the 21 men
and women killed at least 19 of them were black
(Atkinson, 2015). This cartoon is essentially saying
that we need to stand up, fight for equal rights for
transgender