Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:DIS) is offering another sign of its support for the LGBTQ community by airing a new public service announcement showing support for transgender youth.
What Happened: CNBC is reporting the PSA is produced by GLAAD, an LGBTQ-focused media monitoring nonprofit and features Max Briggle, a transgender youth in Texas. In the PSA, which carries the title “Protect Our Families,” Max’s mother Amber Briggle described her offspring as being a “happy, healthy, whole child” while video clips show Max engaging in everyday family activities.
“If you’ve never met a transgender child before what I want you to know is that that child is no different than yours,” Briggle said in the PSA. “They have the same hopes and dreams and deserve the same equality as yours does.”
Briggle added in the PSA that “there are some politicians that are trying to tear my family apart simply because my son is transgender. Trans kids don’t have a political agenda — they are just kids and they just want to be left alone.”
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Why It Happened: The PSA is being released at a time when LGBTQ advocates are raising concerns over what they viewed as the targeting of transgender youth through state legislation and directives and through criticism aimed at young transgender athletes competing in sports events. Disney wound up in the center of this issue through its controversial stand on Florida’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” legislation that earned the wrath of both Gov. Ron DeSantis (who called the company “woke”) and the Human Rights Campaign (which rejected a Disney donation by stating the company did not do enough to show support of LGBTQ rights).
The new PSA will be aired by media outlets owned by Disney, and it will also be seen on networks operated by Comcast Corporation (NASDAQ:CMCSA), AT&T’s (NYSE:T) WarnerMedia and Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARAA).
Disney’s airing of the GLAAD PSA comes after the company hired Kristina Schake as its new executive vice president of global communications. Schake co-founded a nonprofit that was instrumental in overturning Proposition 8, a California constitutional amendment designed to prohibit same-sex marriage in the state.
Photo: Screen shot of GLAAD's PSA featuring Max Briggle, a transgender youth in Texas.
