Meet & Greet: Trans+ History Week’s Founder Marty Davies
Interviews
In this week’s Meet & Greet interview, myGwork's rainbow role model Marty Davies reflects on why trans representation matters more than ever right now, and how it influenced their decision to launch Trans+ History Week. They also provide an insight into how they are working hard to help promote LGBTQ+ inclusion in media through their other roles as joint CEO of queer advocacy group Outvertising, as well as founder of creative strategy consulting firm Smarty Pants Consultancy.
Hi Marty, can you tell us about your career journey to date?
The thing that stitches together my career is my curiosity in people, and my ability to solve problems by observing patterns and challenging systems. I’ve spent most of my career in advertising and marketing as a strategist. The last five of which include building my own creative strategy consultancy - Smarty Pants Consultancy - and working with clients like Just Eat Takeaway.com and Go.Compare.
I’m also a campaigner, thought-leader, agitator and change-maker - working to drive better conditions for queer people in our industry. I volunteer as Joint CEO of the queer advocacy group Outvertising to pursue this work - and this year Outvertising was recognized for our work and nominated for a PinkNews Award.
Alongside this, I’ve indulged my passion for writing by working as a part-time music journalist and writing on queer history and culture. This year I was appointed Campaign Magazine’s first transgender columnist, where I write a monthly column titled ‘A Queer View' – combining these three passions of mine; creativity, writing and advocacy work.
Can you tell us more about your business, Smarty Pants Consultancy?
We’re a flexible strategy-first creative consultancy that’s historically specialized in customer activation and retention. We’ve won awards for our customer engagement strategies, including best use of AI at the DMA Awards. We’re a small team of strategic marketing people who partner with brands and agencies to make smart stuff happen. Our strategies have helped generate over €100m in incremental revenue for our clients.
The consultancy has evolved over the past year to support brands and agencies seeking to get LGBTQ+ inclusion right in their creative campaigns and in their product and service experience design. I was awarded “highly commended” in the Business Trailblazer category at PinkNews Awards 2023 for my work driving LGBTQ+ representation and inclusion within the ad industry.
What are your reflections on the hostility toward trans+ people in ads?
Trans+ people belong in our media, and we belong in ads. I’m worried that we are seeing less trans+ representation in ads. And we didn’t have a whole lot to start with.
The reality in 2023 is that brands that include trans+ people in ads face inevitable backlash from far right talking heads and from a media that is invested in hunting clicks with sensationalism and mis/disinformation about trans+ people.
From January to the end of September this year, there have been 4,629 articles about trans+ people in the UK news media – the majority with negative framing, all with advertising around them. In 2018 over the same period that number was 823. That’s a 462% increase. (Source: Community database Dysphorum).
The last five years of published hate crime data from the government reveal an increase from 2,329 > 4,732 incidents of reported transgender related hate crime across England and Wales. The latest figures published on 05 October reveal an increase of 11% from the previous year; taking it to record breaking levels. And we know that most goes unreported, according to Stonewall.
Brands are nervous to include us. But advertising is one of the only places trans+ people see themselves in media with authentic positive portrayals. Invisibility in media can never be right. Brands must include trans+ people in their ads and invest in inclusion work within their businesses.
How important is LGBTQ+, particularly trans inclusion in the workplace to you?
It matters to me because it affects me and a community I’m a part of. Trans+ people deserve to thrive in all areas of their lives. And right now we’re in the midst of a moral panic stoked by irresponsible opportunistic politicians.
I wrote about the future of the advertising industry in the last ever printed edition of Campaign Magazine. The reality is that our queer people aren’t thriving in our industry. We know that most LGBTQ+ people mask at work - meaning they’re not bringing their full selves to work. This behavior is undoubtedly as a result of non-inclusive workplace environments. They’re experiencing both stress and anxiety at greater levels and are leaving the industry at a greater rate.
I fear it’s only going to get worse in the short term. Clients are spending less. Margins are being squeezed. And investment in people is on the chopping block.
My hopeful view is that agency models that genuinely centre the wellbeing of their talent will thrive. The best minds will be drawn to these environments, and clients will be attracted by the superior creativity, effectiveness and innovation produced there. The shortermist agencies will suffer and be forced to rethink their approach.
How are you personally promoting trans inclusion in the workplace?
I’m not a Trans+ inclusion specialist. I am simply a trans+ person. Being trans non-binary really is the most uninteresting thing about me. There are plenty of incredible trans+ educators out there, but what I have been doing is speaking to brand product and marketing teams and creative agencies on two topics in particular within my area of expertise:
1. Transforming Trans+ representation in ads
2. Designing for diversity of gender, sex and sexual orientation
Brands that are striving for hyper-personalized products and services or have consumers that have high expectations of service, as in the world of luxury, find these topics of particular interest and value.
You’ve just launched a new initiative, Trans+ History Week. Can you tell us more about that?
Yes, I’ve just announced that I’m introducing a new week into our queer calendar – Trans+ History Week – which will take place from 6-12 May 2024. It’s a social enterprise I’ve founded in collaboration with QueerAF as its first launchpad project. It 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 needs to exist because Trans+ people exist and always have done. Trans+ History Week makes space for the Trans+ history lesson we never had. I believe that knowledge of our past is absolutely fundamental for our future liberation. It’s how we shut down the idea that we’re a modern invention and therefore unworthy of respect. And that’s why it will be held before Pride month. It makes sure that the march for our future starts in our past.
The stories and topics it tells are guided by our entire varied intersectional community. It’s a space for Trans+ people, by Trans+ people. For all of our history. It has been supported at launch by myGwork, Stonewall, Queer Britain, LGBT Foundation, Just Like Us, Not A Phase and many others. I’m very grateful for the support it’s received by the sector. It shows how important the need is. We’ll be encouraging businesses to mark the week by hosting events and platforming our history; so it’s really important to have the support of myGwork to do this.
Are there any podcasts that you are listening to or books that you are reading right now and would recommend to other LGBTQ+ professionals?
I’m going to answer this honestly. I’m not sure I’d frame these as recommendations but here they are. I’m usually obsessing about something quite niche and odd. I’m currently into a podcast called ‘Tooth & Claw’ which discusses true stories of extreme wild animal attacks on humans. I find it fascinating. There are hours of episodes on the shark attacks that inspired the film Jaws.
I’m also interested in queer history, so I’m always looking for podcast recommendations relating to that. There’s a great episode of the Bottoming podcast with Christine Burns where she talks about the history of her campaign group Press for Change and the group’s success in securing the Gender Recognition Act twenty years ago. I can recommend that.
What's your all-time favorite movie/show and how many times have you watched it?
I don’t tend to watch movies or TV shows more than once. The best thing I’ve watched recently is on Disney+ ‘Coleen Rooney: The Real Wagatha Story.’ The story has it all.
I’m also watching Brit Marling’s new TV Show ‘Murder at the end of the world’. Brit Marling is one of the most talented storytellers of our generation. Her series, The OA, is an incredible rumination on trauma, community and healing - cruelly canceled by Netflix. This new series though, features one of my favourite actors, Emma Corrin, who I was also lucky enough to see also in the play Orlando earlier this year. I’m only two episodes in but I’m hooked on a Brit Marling show once again.
As someone interested in Trans+ representation in media, I do recommend people watch “Disclosure” on Netflix which is about Trans+ lives on screen - how Hollywood has historically depicted our community.
And for those interested in history and politics - as it is twenty years this month since the repeal of Section 28 - do watch “Eldorado - Everything the Nazis Hate”. It is about the Eldorado club in the Weimar Republic and the world’s first trans clinic. Section 28 denied us this history in school - and inclusive history lessons are still not guaranteed. There are eerie parallels with our present and I believe learning and sharing our history is absolutely fundamental for our liberation.
RELATED ARTICLES
