As Donald Trump ascends to the presidency once more, Sarah Kate Ellis, president and CEO of the queer media watchdog organization GLAAD, is watching American media very closely.
“Who owns the media owns politics,” she tells LGBTQ Nation, and that’s potentially troubling considering GLAAD’s studies have shown that two of the nation’s largest social media networks — Facebook and X — have increasingly allowed the proliferation of anti-LGBTQ+ hate speech and misinformation.
Transphobic billionaire Elon Musk has turned X into a right-wing amplifier, and Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta (parent company of Facebook, Threads, Instagram, WhatsApp, and more) recently relaxed the platforms’ hate speech policies and announced an end to fact-checking and moderation, calling it “too politically biased” and saying fact-checkers “have destroyed more trust than they’ve created.”
“What Zuckerberg said… was so offensive—that there is a bias in fact-checking, and there’s a bias in holding people accountable. That thought is disturbing at its roots,” Ellis says, adding, “The American people deserve the truth and facts.”
Insights for the LGBTQ+ community
Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.
“Who owns the media owns politics,” says GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis. Photo provided by GLAAD.
Ellis understands the impact of truthful storytelling. As GLAAD’s president and CEO for the last 11 years, she has not only overseen her organization’s media monitoring but also advocates for pro-LGBTQ+ cultural change by working with media outlets, politicians, and thought leaders to tell nuanced and compelling stories that humanize queer people and their experiences.
“The media ecosystem is evolving, and I think that we, as a community and as a society, have to take a really close look at that,” says Ellis. “The [social media] algorithm plays to hate, and we have to figure out how to make the algorithm play to honesty and truth.”
But truth and fact seem hard to come by when right-wingers discuss LGBTQ+ issues, and their discourse may be having a negative impact. While one in ten Americans now identify as LGBTQ+, support for marriage equality and nondiscrimination protections has declined over the last year. The drop coincides with a growing online trend of referring to LGBTQ+ people and their allies as “groomers” who want to “sexualize” and indoctrinate children.
The LGBTQ+ community has faced such demonizing claims in the past, but this time, anti-LGBTQ+ media forces seem to have aligned their message with a Republican agenda, creating a lockstep narrative that casts queers as a threat to all aspects of American life.
“What’s going to be at stake for us is protecting the rights that we’ve fought so hard to get as a community. I think they’re all going to be on the chopping block.”
GLAAD has countered these narratives with education and powerful stories from influential ambassadors. At the 75th Annual Emmy Awards, Ellis and drag legend RuPaul issued urgent calls for greater LGBTQ+ rights and visibility. While accepting a GLAAD Vanguard Award last year, media mogul Oprah Winfrey shared how her gay brother’s death from AIDS inspired her to share stories humanizing queer people of all sorts.
These moments aren’t just meant to be moving or attention-grabbing. Ellis knows that they’re part of a larger strategy in the continuing battle against anti-LGBTQ+ forces.
“What’s going to be at stake for us is protecting the rights that we’ve fought so hard to get as a community,” Ellis says of the second Trump administration. “I think they’re all going to be on the chopping block,” she adds, starting with trans rights. And Republicans have so far proven her right.
“It’s weird that they’re so obsessed with trans people that they spent a quarter of a billion dollars… they’re placing big bets on this,” Ellis says, noting the $215 million Republicans spent on transphobic election season attack ads. While Republicans have erected a trans “boogeyman” to fear-monger and divide people, she says, “It’s not successful.”
Ellis may be right. Last October, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) conducted a poll showing that only 5% of voters felt concerned about gender-affirming care, and 61% said they wouldn’t support candidates supporting banning its access.
“I think that we have to be really clear about that most Americans feel that people should live the life that they want, and that government shouldn’t be involved, and that we should all leave each other alone,” Ellis says, pointing to GLAAD’s 2023 polling showing that 91% of non-LGBTQ+ Americans agree that LGBTQ+ people should have the freedom to live their life and not be discriminated against and 84% support equal rights for the LGBTQ+ community.
“When I talk to people, they’re so sick of it,” Ellis says. “Whether or not they’re left, right, or in the middle—they’re just sick of hearing about trans people from Republicans.” But she also acknowledges that Republican attempts to vilify trans people have preyed on widespread ignorance.
Related:
Only 28% of non-LGBTQ+ Americans say they know a transgender person, according to GLAAD’s polling. In this ignorance gap, Republicans have conjured a threatening image of all trans women as men in dresses waiting to assault girls and women in bathrooms and sports fields.
Delaware voters made history in 2024 by electing the first-ever out trans Congress member, Rep. Sarah McBride (D-DE). However, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) responded by issuing hundreds of transphobic tweets accusing McBride of grooming kids, pushing legislation to “protect women” and “save women’s sports” by banning trans people from using Capitol restrooms and supporting a bill to ban trans athletes in federally funded schools.
While Mace has become just another Republican Congress member spreading anti-trans hate speech online, Ellis believes there’s a real opportunity to counter such speech by humanizing real–life trans people outside the highly politicized topics of sports and medicine.
“There’s nothing more powerful than storytelling.”
GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis
Ellis notes that the gay rights movement made significant modern advancements when it began sharing stories that showed lesbian, gay, and bisexual people working and living as friends, neighbors, coworkers, and family members—celebrating birthdays, caring for housepets, and doing chores—in communities nationwide. These stories show queer people holistically and not just one-dimensionally, Ellis says.
“There’s nothing more powerful than storytelling, and whether you meet a trans person through media, or you meet them in real life or by learning people’s stories, you can’t hate someone whose story you know,” Ellis says, adding that such storytelling as been at the core of GLAAD’s mission for the past 40 years.
“It has been proven, time and time again, that when we know each other’s stories, it brings us together, and it bridges gaps,” she adds.
Ellis also sees an opportunity to add more nuance to the public’s understanding of gender-affirming care by pointing out that cisgender people make gender-affirming choices all the time through cosmetics, clothing, medications, and bodily procedures of all kinds to make them feel more aligned in their gender presentations.
Indeed, cis children get gender-affirming surgeries far more often than trans kids, according to a July 2024 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Pointing out such facts, Ellis says, could help normalize and expand people’s understanding, providing some much-needed context and nuance that would demonstrate that “No one’s trying to take anything over” in terms of sports and bathrooms, Ellis says. “People are just trying to live their lives and be happy.”
But GLAAD is not just focused on the hearts and minds of average American media consumers. The organization also seeks to influence powerful individuals who can directly affect how LGBTQ+ people are seen and treated nationwide.
GLAAD also helps shape policy on Capitol Hill, providing input on the contentious Kids Online Safety Act, and leads cultural briefings about evolving queer community trends to “Congress members, CEOs, Hollywood executives, artists, and influencers across the board,” Ellis notes.
Oftentimes, GLAAD will seek conversations with people who have LGBTQ+ family members, who have stakeholders in their communities, or who understand the challenges that LGBTQ+ face—particularly those who can help further LGBTQ+-inclusive conversations in high-stakes political and cultural contexts.
But she stresses that average Americans, no matter whether they consume legacy or new media, still have a key role to play in helping support the most marginalized queer people in the years ahead.
“Everybody has a platform now, and everybody has a voice,” Ellis says, “I always say what’s most important is … to ensure that you’re bringing LGBTQ voices to that table and representing the community.”
Related:
Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.
