Speaking directly to the diversity of the LGBTQIA2S+ liberation movement required more than technical excellence — our narrative needed to be rooted in genuine, unfakeable care.
When you’re speaking directly to marginalized audiences, and particularly when you’re advocating on their behalf, folks can smell bullshit a mile away. Disingenuous, transactional or tokenizing approaches aren’t just a storytelling miss, they actively erode trust in your organization, and in the integrity of its mission.
Safeguarding trust was key to the success of this campaign with the Equality Federation. They engaged Human Centric Media to help deploy an asset library their nationwide partners could utilize while developing a collaborative communications strategy for mpox vaccine adoption.
Wherever they live in LGBTQIA2S+, queer people are understandably skeptical of a national organization telling them how to take care of themselves — even one with the fed’s long history of impactful work.
Anchored in Queer Joy
We set out to design a production that lived and breathed queer joy. Human Centric Media has spent almost nine years building relationships in the Portland queer community, witnessing how brightly these people shine and how much innovative thinking they bring to our systems.
We relied on those relationships while planning, casting and executing this production, knowing that if the care didn’t feel real, nobody would listen.
One of the most important elements of our trauma-informed approach to storytelling is not putting words in our subjects’ mouths. The resulting media directly reflects the rapport and open curiosity we showed the models — providing each of them ample space to express their radiant identities on their own terms.
The Relationship is the Point
It’s easy to forget when your goals are ambitious and national in-scope, but organizations like Equality Federation stay invested in this work because of the impact on their individual relationships.
Their commitment to strengthening the LGBTQIA2S+ movement across the country through advocacy, organizing and leadership development isn’t just about the 30,000ft view — the impact on each queer person radiates out into their communities, inspiring new role models for the future of our liberation.
To speak directly to marginalized audiences, especially when there’s justifiable distrust, it can work against you to zoom out and speak to your national aspirations. It’s much more evocative and motivating to deeply invest in individual ‘characters’ — each with their own experience, perspective and relatable traits.
Connections that Last
Human Centric Media designs campaigns that center individual relationships because stories told this way last longer and reverberate further.
The images we produced for Equality Federation didn’t just go on to power mpox vaccine adoption drives across the country, they added a valuable tool to the organization’s belt: expressions of queer joy that demonstrate their deep investment in our community, and the genuineness of their care.
Media like this truly lasts forever, not because of its technical excellence, but its commitment to that care.
What does your communications strategy say about your relationships?
