Help tell the Trans+ history lesson we never had
Trans+ History Week is a week-long reflective period to learn and celebrate the momentous and millennia-old history of transgender, non-binary, gender-diverse and Intersex people. Trans+ History Week is a social enterprise to ensure its activity benefits the community and a QueerAF Launchpad project.
In its inaugural year, we're investing in 20 Trans+ Creatives to help us mark the week by making official content.
It begins on May 06 2024, the 91st anniversary of the Nazi raid on the world’s first trans clinic. It's the week they tried to erase us. It's the week we will be remembered. This is when our official content will start to come out.
We're investing in 20 Trans+ creatives to create official content for Trans+ History Week by writing, producing audio and creating illustrations
There are paid commissions available for:
- 7 Writers and journalists
- 7 Illustrators and artists
- 6 Audio and podcast producers
All of these opportunities are to create content - but it's not just about capturing history. Successful pitches will detail what lessons we can learn from history.
History is a tool for liberation - these commissions will help our community understand what the stories teach about us about our future.
A Trans+ team of community commissioners will judge all pitches.
We're particularly interested in hearing from unpublished, marginalised and emerging Trans+ creatives.
The stories will all come out during and after Trans+ History Week, so you should be prepared to turn the content around within a few weeks after being informed if you've been successful on the w/c 1st of April.
What kinds of stories are we looking to tell?
The USP of our content is not just telling history - but sharing insights on what we can learn from it. Succesful pitches will be focused on this element.
Trans+ History Week develops guidance around four lesson themes each year:
- We’ve always been here
- We can’t be erased
- We’re stronger together
- We’re more than Trans+
That full guidance is downloadable now and is full of loads of ideas for the kind of stories we're telling this year. This guidance is designed to make it easy for anyone in the LGBTQIA+ sector, media and organisations to talk about Trans+ history. Each lesson theme has a topic this year:
- Hidjra communities
- Stories about the Eldorado community, like that of Karl Konheim
- Untold history of Modern protest movements like the Street transvestite revolutionaries
- Trans people in music like Sophie
We're interested in hearing pitches about these topics, but we're interested in going beyond them in the breadth of our official content, too. Keep this in mind when coming up with your ideas.
The opportunties
For Writers
We're looking for pitches for 700-1000 word history articles, we'll commission seven in total - one for each day of Trans+ History Week in this signle commission mentoring and writing scheme
- You'll get £100 to cover your costs
- Each commission will come with QueerAF's unique communication and journalistic 'Retro' skills session - described as like "therapy, but for your writing" - designed to put you in charge of your edit.
- They should be 'think pieces' in format which aims to be thought-provoking and speculative. They will consist chiefly of background material and analysis and can contain some opinion.
- We're looking to tell history stories, but we're interested in focusing on the lessons from them.
- We're looking for your perspective on history, so the topic you pick will be strongest if it's based in your experiences and viewpoint.
To pitch, you'll need to provide some examples of previous work, a working headline and four to five bullet points about what your article will cover.
One of these bullet points should tell us how the piece will conclude with what learning there is from this history lesson. Here is an example.
For Illustrators
We'll be matching Illustrators up with the seven successful journalists to bring their history stories to life in an illustration
- You'll be paid at a rate of £250
- You'll bring to life a history story told in an article by one of our commissioned journalists and writers.
- You'll be provided with a draft of the article and some background material to produce your illustration - which can be created in your preferred style but will need to be submitted digitally if created 'offline'
- It will primarily designed for the article in a landscape format, with a 'safe' portrait area for social media use. It will be used in other marketing materials for Trans+ History Week too.
To pitch, you'll need to provide some examples of previous work and answer a couple of questions on what this opportunity will mean for you and why you're passionate about Trans+ History.
For Audio Producers
We're looking for pitches for 20-30 minute mini-documentary style podcast episodes in the format of the award winning QueerAF podcast series.
- You'll be paid at a rate of £500, and be provided with audio equipment you can keep for life to help produce the episode.
- Each commission will come with QueerAF's unique 'pitch to invoice' mentoring process including a 'Retro' skills session designed to help you build your audio production skills, as well as put you in charge of your edit.
- You will host and produce a scripted episode with audio from one main interviewee and at least two supplementary voices. They will contain some sound design, and the QueerAF team will support you with the executive production and mastering of this.
- We're looking to tell history stories, but we're interested in focusing on the lessons from them and this is where your episode should conclude.
- We're looking for your perspective on history, so the topic you pick will be strongest if it's based in your experiences and viewpoint.
To pitch, you'll need to provide some examples of previous work, a working title for your episode, four to five bullet points about what your podcast will cover, and the 'dream' guests you'd interview - plus some backup suggestions.
Your pitch should tell us how the piece will conclude with what learning there is from this history lesson.
We encourage you to listen to at least three different QueerAF podcast episodes to get a feel for what they sound like before pitching. They have a unique sound and feel, and each episode is hosted by a different queer creative.
Here - are - three - suggestions.
The guiding principles of our official content:
This week is about learning from our history and apply its learnings in our present.
All the stories we tell will be guided and ensure:
- Our joyful stories are just as important as our traumatic ones.
- All stories have a learning we can apply in our present.
- Our intersectional community guides commissioning through tools and forums.
To take part in guiding this process, join our open newsroom session or take part in our survey now.
For even more inspiration, check out these articles:
Marty Davies
Marty Davies
Jamie Wareham
What is QueerAF?
We help you understand the LGBTQIA+ world and support queer creatives to change the media. We're a not-for-profit publisher.
We're an award-winning independent platform launching the careers of emerging and underrepresented LGBTQIA+ creatives driven by people, not advertisers.
Ultimately, QueerAF is a platform where creators, journalists and producers can get paid and commissioned directly by the QueerAF community. This while we mentor you to build a career, work in the industry - and then change it.
We're a not-for-profit and IMPRESS-regulated publisher who has locked our profits and assets into the LGBTQIA+ community.
We're here to invest in queer creatives and help QueerAF talent succeed - just like we're doing with our first launchpad initiative - Trans+ History Week.
📆 Add Trans+ History Week to your calendar:
- Trans+ History Day 06 May
- Trans+ History Week 06 - 12 May
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Marty Davies
