Centretown Community Health Centre applauds Hershey for including transgender representation in their annual International Women’s Day campaign – Her for She.
The campaign highlights incredible young Canadian women who are change makers in a variety of different areas and celebrates them on its chocolate bars. This included Ottawa-based trans rights activist and executive director of Wisdom2Action, Fae Johnstone.
Since the release of the campaign, Fae has been the target of an indescribable number of transphobic comments, news stories and even a call for a boycott of the chocolate company for including a trans woman in their campaign.
Centretown CHC provides a range of health and social supports for 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, including a Trans Health Program. As an organization that supports and promotes the health and wellbeing for all, Centretown CHC is outraged by the transphobic response to what should be a celebrated campaign. The backlash against a transwoman proves just how much more work is needed across 2SLGBTQIA+ representation, inclusion, and rights. As Fae states in her campaign video, “we can create a world where everyone can live in public space as their honest and authentic selves.”
The Her for She Campaign celebrates International Women’s Day – a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. International Women’s Day is a day to celebrate all women – cis and trans.
We believe that trans women must be treated with respect and dignity, and recognized as women. Denying the validity of a trans woman’s identity is disrespectful and hurtful and continues to perpetuates harmful stereotypes and discrimination against the transgender community. All individuals should be allowed to express their gender identity without fear of discrimination, violence and harassment.
A campaign such as Hershey’s Her for She counters the fact that trans people are regularly excluded from mainstream media and culture. Including positive trans representation in campaigns helps to increase visibility and representation for the trans community.
Centretown CHC offers gender affirming counselling and medical transition support. We are committed to working towards more trans representation and inclusion across all aspects of our society and wishes all women – trans and cis – a happy International Women’s Day.