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Welcome to the Latina/o Community section. Here you will find resources to help you cover this specific community in a fair, accurate and inclusive way. These resources include reports, tips, examples of balanced and unbalanced portrayals in the media and an essay on assumptions and attitudes that prevent the media from portraying the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Latina/o community in a fair and balanced manner.
Like other communities of color, LGBT Latina/os are a minority within a minority. Although the media is covering the lives, stories and issues of LGBT people more frequently, LGBT Latina/o voices, perspectives and opinions are too often left out of the picture. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Latina/os still find themselves to be invisible within the United States population and the “mainstream” LGBT community despite the fact that Latinos are the largest minority group in the country, according to the Census 2000 population figures. Some contributing factors: Latina/os rarely are seated in decision-making, senior management positions within LGBT organizations and the lack of fair and accurate portrayals of LGBT Latina/os in the media. And when LGBT Latina/os are represented in the media, they are often presented in strictly male or female roles, such as the lisp-talking, effeminate male or the tough, butch-looking woman. This is especially true of the Spanish-language media.
GLAAD’s People of Color (POC) Media Program has been collaborating with LGBT Latina/o organizations in the United States to eliminate stereotypes and promote fair, accurate and inclusive representation of this community in all types of media. The program also provides media training sessions across the country to Latina/o LGBT activists to encourage them to advocate for inclusive representation in the media.
On the media front, the POC Media Program has been working with mainstream, Latino and Spanish-speaking media professionals to help shape the way these media outlets cover LGBT Latina/o issues. It is not a secret that historically and culturally, Spanish-language media has portrayed LGBT people in stereotypical and sensationalistic ways in the United States and in Latin America. An interesting connection exists among Spanish-language media viewers in the U.S. and Latin America. They are virtually watching the same programs. Eighty percent of Spanish-language programming in the U.S. is produced in Latin America, and many of the shows produced by Unvision, Telemundo and CNN en Español in the U.S. are broadcast in Latin America. This means that Spanish-speaking viewers – no matter their country of residence – are watching the same LGBT images and representations. Because of this symbiotic relationship among the TV networks, GLAAD began working with Latin American Televisa, the largest television network in the Spanish-speaking world, to improve the fairness and accuracy of these images.
The POC Media Program has made a tremendous impact in the Spanish-language media by challenging media professionals to portray LGBT Latina/os in fair and inclusive ways. Over the years, GLAAD has cemented strong relationships with Spanish-language media professionals at the local and national level. Moreover, GLAAD continues to work with Latino and mainstream media professionals in the following ways: suggesting and pitching story ideas to reporters and producers; providing referrals of spokespeople from this specific community; and offering relevant terminology and tips on how to cover LGBT Latina/os.
GLAAD's record of successes with Spanish-language media in the last couple of years reflects the need to continue informing and educating media professionals. Some of these successes have included working with Telemundo, CNN en Español, Univision, Azteca América, Galavisión, Si TV and other television networks. The POC Media Program also has held editorial board meetings with La Opinión, Hoy, and has met with numerous other Spanish-language print media professionals – prompting countless articles nationwide. One example of this: In 2003, GLAAD met with People en Español’s editorial staff and provided story ideas about the LGBT community. In October 2003, People en Español published an amazing feature about Buenos Aires civil unions, making it the first LGBT-related story in the magazine’s six-year history.
In addition to the POC Media Program, GLAAD's other media programs (Entertainment, National and Regional) consistently call attention to the lack of Latina/o LGBT images in mainstream media and promote their inclusion in every possible way.
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