The Greatest Piece of Advertising I’ll Never Watch Again… and Other Things

On November 20th 2023, my coworker, April Summers, sent me a Google Chat message with a piece of Canadian work I’ll never forget. 

In fact, to this day, I still don’t quite have the words to describe what I saw. This beautiful campaign for White Ribbon, directed by Angie Bird, took a breathtakingly real lens to the life of one male-to-female trans person of colour. And, while it wasn’t necessarily a true story, it captured the trans existence honestly and perfectly. The early days and trying makeup for the first time. Getting the passport photo replaced, in spite of the odd looks from the photographer. The isolation from one’s family for admitting who you really are - although thankfully, not everyone faces that - and, horrifically, a brutal death on what otherwise should have been a night of celebration. 

So, to say the ending ripped the heart out of my body would be an understatement. And I don’t think I was alone in that. I showed it to my coworkers - Addison Capper and Adam Bennett - two cis guys, and the impact was not lost on them either. They both quickly echoed April’s sentiment - you need to do a piece on this. 

But, for me, it hit a little harder. You see, just six days prior, I had left the doctor’s office with a prescription for estrogen patches and cyproterone acetate, in order to start a journey of my own.

Yes, I am trans. Although I’ve been wearing the working mask of Josh Neufeldt the Canada reporter for quite some time, that’s never who I really was, or wanted to be. I treated it like a pen name - a platform I used to put out work I was proud of - but it was never my authentic self. 

Who am I really? For a long time now, outside of work, I’ve been going by Jordan ‘Jordie’ Neufeldt. I use she/they pronouns in my personal life. I’ve battled, and still do struggle with dysphoria. And yes, if you have questions, you’re more than welcome to ask - provided you’re polite.

Anyway, there I was, a half-Chinese trans girl, six days into hormone replacement therapy, looking at a slideshow of the moments I had experienced, as well as those that I knew would or could happen (although, hopefully not the ending). And while terrifying and emotional, it nevertheless made me feel seen. Not only do I imagine that all these scenes serve as snapshots of a reality not necessarily understood before by my cis counterparts, but for me, they were a promised reality - my imminent future. And to have this depicted in such an honest, authentic way - that was incredibly powerful for me.

Unfortunately, ‘terrifying’ was also an operative word. While the film handled it in a sensitive way, I was left devastated - in tears - seeing it come to its conclusion. The stats don’t lie. At the time of writing this, trans people do have a shorter life expectancy than those of their cis counterparts, even in Canada. And that’s a reality I have to face. Sure, the work is intentionally dramatic - it is a piece intended to denounce anti-trans violence, and no, I don’t expect to be murdered in a bar - but it also made me question the security in accepting my own sense of self. On paper, does throwing away a life as a cishet-seeming, white-passing guy who got hired straight out of school seem like a good idea? Maybe not, but I didn’t have a choice. This was what it would take to truly be me… and knowing that brought about a whole series of important, but painful emotions.

Sidebar - writing questions in that condition wasn’t exactly the easiest. Considering that almost entirely up until the point of putting this article live, I’d been in the closet at work, I couldn’t have just been like ‘Aha hey Addison, you see this piece I should be writing about? Yeah I can’t do that, it hits WAY too close to home for me because… uh… reasons?’. 

So, I focused on the positives. As someone in the demographic the work pertains to, I could use my voice to spread awareness amongst the industry, even if I had to present as just an ally in the process. That didn’t really make it less painful - I’d describe the experience as gritting my teeth and bearing down - but it needed to be talked about, and if I couldn’t represent myself honestly at the time, I’d at least try to do the next best thing.

I still remember asking Adam to proof my piece. Where a few editors at the company fancy brevity a tad more than I (a six-page Google Doc is a smidge long, admittedly), I didn’t want to trim the work whatsoever, and said, ‘Adam, this needs to be talked about, can you please edit this for me and not cut?’. Graciously, he obliged my request, and we were off to the races. I got it published and… immediately closed the tab. 

Then I realised I’d forgotten to do all the usual stuff that comes with publishing. So, I re-opened, plugged it into the tracking sheets, and that’s when I really faced my next dilemma. I couldn’t tell these people who’d made the spot just why it meant so much to me (although, if any of you are reading this, I hope you know now). It just felt so disingenuous - almost a betrayal of the self - to send the link back to them under the ‘Josh’ name. So I signed it off as ‘J’, and went to LinkedIn to share.

But, in all of that, I never rewatched. I didn’t click the replay button when initially writing those questions, even though normally, I’ll review creative pieces three to five times for such a process. I also couldn’t bring myself to view it again even after I published the piece. The images and filmography were still blazed into my memory, and I didn’t have the heart, or the stomach to endure that again. For all its beauty and brilliance as a piece of creative, it was too real for me, and I think that it may stay that way for a very, very long time. 

So, what’s the takeaway from all of this? I think, most importantly, it’s a reminder that when advertising tells a story in an authentic way - one that’s true to the lived-experiences of marginalised demographics - it transcends the genre. Regardless of your knowledge going into the first viewing, you walk away enriched, enlightened, and in some ways, upset, but that’s the power of writing with emotions. None of that is bad. If you feel something, it worked. And at the end of the day, isn’t that the point?

I also think it goes to show that a good message should never require multiple viewings to land. While yes, there’s merit (and great, flex-worthy stats) that come from those spots that encourage you to watch over and over and over again - and I do love many of those pieces of work - sometimes, one viewing is all it takes to change a life, be it the outlook of a somewhat conservative industry veteran, or the way one young transfemme views the advertising industry as a whole. 

As such, with all that said, I’d like to offer my sincerest praise to every single person who came together to create this beautiful spot. I hope you know I still think about it weekly, to this day, even if I don’t plan to rewatch.

And, you know, since this is also my advertising-related, op-ed way of coming out to the industry, I’ll add that from the bottom of my heart, I hope you can come to accept me for who I am, and understand that as Jordie, I still bring the same things to the table I always did. At the end of the day, I’m still the same determined person who’s gunning to place Canadian advertising at the apex of the international listings - just a far happier, more honest version. And that’s all we can ever truly ask for, right?