Trans Organizing and Narrative Shift (TONS) Project

Equality Federation Institute is an advocacy accelerator rooted in social justice, building power with a network of 50 state partners across the country to ensure that everyone can thrive in whatever community they call home. The Trans Organizing & Narrative Shift Project (TONS) is a bold initiative of Equality Federation Institute—in partnership with Better World Collaborative, Goodwin Simon Strategic Research, and the New Conversation Initiative— that seeks to build durable change for transgender and nonbinary people through data-backed and community-informed messaging tools and organizing strategies. It also sets a new standard for the movement that any research, messaging, or organizing about trans people must be led by trans people.

What truly sets TONS apart from traditional messaging projects is that it’s rooted in the lived experience of — and guided by — trans and nonbinary people across the U.S. TONS is about community organizing, engaging trans people in sharing their stories, continual on-the-ground testing, iteration, and building capacity and power in the states. We have been intentional about approaching the design with a racial justice lens as we engage two different universes: trans folks and their loved ones and people who are not with us or who we could lose. We will deeply engage both universes in different research methodologies.

BWC serves as the TONS project manager as well as the organizer of the Trans Advisory Council (TAC), a group of trans and nonbinary individuals who are leaders in the movement and represent diverse racial identities and lived experiences; they are paid for their time and expertise. This group meets regularly to guide and evaluate the initiative’s work and will serve as validators in the movement for the resulting narrative framework.