The past year has seen media visibility of transgender people (slowly) rise, including a handful of magazine covers. Hari Nef was on the cover of Elle magazine and Caitlyn Jenner was Vanity Fair‘s July star, amongst a few others. Now, National Geographic has revealed that its first cover of 2017 will feature the young transgender activist Avery Jackson, for a special issue that explores “the shifting landscape of gender.” The publication will also release a documentary looking at the social and scientific aspects of our broadening understanding of gender.
“National Geographic is almost 130 years old, and we have been covering cultures, societies, and social issues for all of those years. It struck us, listening to the national conversation, that gender was at the center of so many of these issues in the news,” Susan Goldberg, editorial director of National Geographic Partners and editor in chief of National Geographic magazine, told NBC Out. “We wanted to look at how traditional gender roles play out all over the world, but also look into gender as a spectrum. There’s lots of coverage on celebrities, but there wasn’t an understanding of real people and the issues we face every day in classrooms or workplaces in regards to gender.”
Avery and her parents have publicly discussed their experiences of her coming out as transgender and transitioning, their struggles with those who have discriminated against them, and the importance of understanding and support for trans people.
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Text Clementine de Pressigny