Latino/a Community & Spanish-Language Media

The Spanish-speaking community is one of the fastest growing populations in the country, and as a result, Spanish-language media continues to grow exponentially in size and influence. The Spanish-Language Media team works to increase the number and quality of LGBT Latina/o images in Spanish-language news and entertainment media.

Many gay and transgender Latina/os still find that they feel invisible within the United States population and the broader LGBT community despite the fact that Latinos are the largest minority group in the country. GLAAD works with Spanish speaking gay and transgender leaders and Spanish language journalists to help elevate the voices and stories of Spanish speaking gay and transgender people in a culturally competent way.

GLAAD also works with mainstream Latino and Spanish-speaking media professionals from Unvision, Telemundo, Azteca América, CNN en Español, La Opinion, Hoy and People en Español to help shape the way these media outlets cover gay and transgender Latina/o issues and help feature the stories of gay and transgender Latino/s in Spanish language news and entertainment programming.

At GLAAD, we are in the business of changing people's hearts and minds through what they see in the media. Fair, accurate and inclusive media images shatter stereotypes. They prove that we are connected through common, human experiences. And these are stories that we -- and the media -- have a responsibility to share.

To find out more, contact us at espanol@glaad.org.

Did You Know?

The number of positive LGBT Latino characters included in Spanish-language media has slowly gotten better – three gay characters were on Telemundo’s Tierra de Pasiones, a primetime telenovela, and a transgender character, Cachita, was on Univision’s El Gordo y la Flaca (2006-2007 season). Cachita is still on the show and has been on since 1998.
At the same time, images of gay and transgender Latinos on T.V. are slowly going down – the number of LGBT series regular characters that are Latino dropped from 49 characters (7%) to 40 characters (6%) to 34 characters (6%) from 2006 to 2008.
Both NBC’s The Office and Fox’s Sit Down, Shut Up have characters that are Latino gay men.
According to surveys, almost all adult children of Latino immigrants are really comfortable with English, but their parents frequently are not (only 23% report being skilled English-speakers) – making it even more important for Spanish-language media to be inclusive in order to change hearts and minds in Latino communities.
Spanish-speaking viewers around the globe watch a lot of the same T.V. – and the same LGBT images, too – because more than three-quarters (80%) of Spanish-language programs in the U.S. are made in Latin America. Of the networks produced in the U.S. (Univision, Telemundo, CNN en Español), many of them are shared with Latin American audiences as well.
According to a Harris Interactive Survey commissioned by GLAAD, Hispanics were often more supportive around key issues facing the LGBT community than Whites and African Americans, even showing the most support among all segments on allowing openly gay military personnel to serve in the armed forces (76% Hispanic, 63% White, 61% African American). See the full results of the Harris Interactive Survey.