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LGBT Technology Partnership Executive Director Chris Wood says series like Emmy-winning Transparent "continue to raise awareness for our community."
Jill Soloway, who won the Emmy Sunday (Sept. 20) for best directing in a comedy series for the Amazon Original offering, used part of her acceptance speech to talk about how far the transgender community has to go. "We don't have a trans tipping point yet, we have a trans problem," she said, urging the audience to go to transequality.org and support the Trans Equality bill.
Jeffrey Tambor, who won an Emmy for his lead portrayal in Transparent, in his speech thanked the transgender community for its patience and for "letting us be part of the change."
Wood said it was past time for the mass media to focus on the community, and give creative artists their due.
"Television, movies and the Internet have been and continue to be a medium to educate society about the LGBTQ community but we are long overdue for shows like Transparent focused specifically on our transgender community," he said in response to the Emmy wins for Soloway and Tambor. "We also need to celebrate and highlight those transgender individuals who have significantly contributed like Trans actress Alexandra Billings for her supporting work on Transparent, Lana Wachowski, writer and director of [Netflix sci-fi series] Sense8, or actress Jamie Clayton, also in Sense8."
We hope that Hollywood and the industry will continue to embrace telling the all too important stories that have been written and acted, by and for our transgender community," he told Multichannel News.
The partnership is holding its annual Fall Policy Forum on Capitol Hill tomorrow (Sept. 22), focusing on the impact of technology, including an open Internet, to benefit the LGBTQ community.
