| 11.05.07: Fight for equality. Live to appreciate it. |
 One of our clients at Cactus is the GLBT Center. They've charged us with promoting Link (a program connecting the GLBT population to health providers that understand and are sensitive to the needs of the GLBTQI community) and educating the GLBT community about specific health risks.After extensive qualitative research of the GLBT population, we found ourselves a bit perplexed. How do you effectively craft a single healthy living campaign to encompass what effectively breaks down to a variety of distinct sub-populations, each with different motivations for staying healthy or accessing healthcare? We found that lesbian women typically define themselves by their roles and relationships; they are mothers and sisters and friends and girlfriends. Relationships seem important to gay men, but the focus is less about the connection and more about the quality of the relationships - think stable, comfortable, reliable. Relationships don't appear to be a strong leverage for a change in behavior for gay men, lest a reason to live a healthier life. What did emerge though is that lesbian women and gay men have a sense of responsibility for "the community," especially when faced with negative attitudes or anti-GLBT legislation. The political climate ties all members of the GLBT population together and gives them a reason to stand and link together. Through the creative development, we wanted to focus on the positives of living a healthier life through the filter of current political initiatives. We focused on gay marriage, adoption/parenting, serving openly in the military. Since most of the initiatives are hotly debated currently and the community¹s goals will most likely be reached within the next decade we felt a "live to see the change" approach would ring hollow; asking someone to be healthy to see 2010 seemed pointless. But asking someone to live to appreciate equality seemed to strike an aspirational tone that would resonate across the sub-populations. After searching Getty Image's Queer Stock section, Cactus' Matt Chiabotti knew original photography was the only option. He organized a photo shoot with Toby Burditt of San Francisco. They street-cast the three different scenarios and shot polariod portraits of real couples from the Bay Area. The resulting photos cast very intimate moods and hit that political edge we were aiming for.   To see more behind-the-scenes photos, visit our album .  Quote this article on your site
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