Chile: "Why do you want a gender identity law?"

Photo: Jimena stands up for her transgender son Mitchell in a newly launched campaign urging passage of a progressive gender identity law in Chile (screen capture).

Transgender rights activists in Chile are taking a page from activists in Argentina in launching an effort to pass a comprehensive gender identity law along the lines of the one that just went into effect in the neighboring country.

The successful efforts in Argentina included a number of brilliant transgender rights ads that sought to change public perception about transgender individuals and highlight the discrimination they face on a daily basis (see this, this and this).

The Chilean Transexual Organiztion for the Dignity of Diversity (OTD) has already produced a couple of ads confronting discrimination against transgender individuals but yesterday they launched a specific campaign advocating for a nationwide gender identity law.

It has its own theme - "For the Dignity of Identity" - and its own webpage leydeidentidaddegenero.cl.  They also want the campaign to be interactive and are urging transgender rights advocates and allies to join them and upload their own videos on YouTube answering a simple question: "Why do you want a gender identity law?" and tagging them with the title "Suma-T" (a play on the word 'súmate' which means 'join us').

You can check the first two submissions here and here.

You can follow the campaign on Facebook here.

Here is the inaugural campaign video launched yesterday by the OTD (turn annotations on for translated subtitles)...