We’re living in a climate where 46% of transgender young people seriously consider attempting suicide and 90% of LGBTQ+ young people reported that recent politics negatively impacted their wellbeing. (The Trevor Project 2024)
As anti-trans rhetoric intensifies and media coverage increasingly frames trans lives through politics, trauma, and debate, we wanted to make something that offered the opposite. Rather than asking trans people to explain themselves or educating others about their existence, we created a series that simply celebrated them, falling in love, laughing together, and imagining hopeful futures.
We deliberately drew on the language of the classic romantic comedy, a genre that has long shaped our collective understanding of who gets to fall in love and live happily ever after. By placing trans couples at the center of that familiar storytelling tradition, our goal was to affirm that trans people belong within stories audiences have always understood as universal.
Our primary objective was to increase hope within the trans community. We hoped that seeing trans people loved openly, building lasting relationships, and experiencing ordinary happiness would help viewers imagine those possibilities for themselves. In a time when trans communities face disproportionately high rates of isolation and mental health challenges, we believed hopeful representation could make a profound difference.
While we hoped the series would also foster empathy and understanding among cis audiences, that was always a secondary objective. First and foremost, In The Midst Of… Love Flourishes was made as a love letter to the trans community.
Every creative decision began with one question: “Will this serve a trans audience?” Rather than producing a series that explained trans experiences to cis viewers, we intentionally built a production where trans people could simply exist without being asked to educate, justify, or defend themselves.
Led by Kai Tillman, am award winning transmasc filmmaker with over 20 years of filmmaking experience, our core team began to conceive what this ‘safe space’ could look like for the community. Immediately we came up with the idea of remaking the ‘rom com’ and featuring trans love stories. We drew on the visual language of the classic romantic comedy, a genre that has historically excluded trans people, to create something that felt immediately familiar while expanding audiences' expectations of who gets to experience love. Every creative decision, from the set design to the music, reinforced that sense of optimism and belonging.
The series featured a diverse collection of everyday couples as well as well-known members of the trans community, including Alexandra Billings and Briel Adams, reflecting the diversity of trans love and ensuring audiences could see both familiar and new voices.
To deepen that emotional connection, every interview was filmed with three cameras. Alongside the traditional two-shot, dedicated close-ups captured each participant's reactions, smiles, tears, and moments of connection. This allowed us to edit the series with the emotional language of romantic cinema, inviting audiences to experience the relationships rather than simply observe conversations.
To help shape our approach, we brought on trans creators Elle Deran and Ezra Michel, whose expertise in digital storytelling informed both our editorial strategy and the creation of our social content. Their lived experience, alongside that of our wider trans team, helped ensure the work resonated authentically with the community it was created for.
We also made the deliberate decision to prioritize community safety over algorithmic performance. Every platform is moderated daily to remove bullying, harassment, and anti-trans abuse, even when doing so may reduce engagement metrics. Rather than encouraging conflict to increase reach, we intentionally cultivated a digital environment where trans people and those who love them could participate without fear of hostility.
As trust grew, viewers became collaborators. Community members began sharing their own photographs and love stories, leading to initiatives such as Meet Cute Mondays, where audience submissions are featured alongside the series itself. The project evolved into an ongoing conversation connecting trans elders, community leaders, and first-time viewers across generations. One of our greatest challenges was protecting both participants and the team behind the project while sharing deeply personal stories in an increasingly hostile online environment. Participants were notified before their episodes were released and received guidance on protecting themselves online, together with mental health and crisis resources, including contacts for our internal team, The Trevor Project, and other support organizations. We also assigned moderation responsibilities to non-trans members of our team to reduce the emotional burden on our trans colleagues, regularly checked in on moderators' wellbeing, and disabled comments whenever discussions became unsafe.
Our objective was to create a project that trans people would recognize as authentic and to increase hope. The response demonstrated that this goal was achieved. Across thousands of comments, viewers consistently described feeling seen and represented. Many shared that the series gave them hope for their own futures.
The series also succeeded in increasing positive representation of trans people. Rather than centering conflict or transition, audiences embraced stories of everyday intimacy and humor. Within five months, we organically generated over 40 million views across platforms, a community of more than 120,000 followers, and received a Telly Award for Diversity & Inclusion, demonstrating that joyful trans storytelling can resonate at scale.
The work continued beyond the episodes themselves. Trans leaders, elders, and public figures engaged with and amplified the series, helping establish it as a meaningful cultural contribution rather than a one-time campaign.
While we hoped cis audiences would gain greater understanding, our measure of success was the reaction from the community itself:
“As a trans mental health provider that facilitates weekly peer support trans groups, this series has increased the hope of my participants. Thank you to everyone involved in documenting trans joy, trans euphoria, trans love, and overall just the humanity that we all carry. We are no different than our cis counterparts.”
“Thank you for creating opportunities to be joyful. It is quietly revolutionary and very likely life saving.”
“I’ve been struggling lately and seeing videos like this gives me some form of hope for the future.”
