Trans Athletes
A Narrative Analysis
Across the United States and in many other countries, transgender people and communities are facing increased threats to their safety, autonomy, and ability to live free and full lives. Even as we watch Laverne Cox boss the red carpet, Rachel Levine ascend to the highest levels of government service, or Kim Petras win a Grammy, violence against trans and LGBTQIA+ people continues to rise, and an increasing number of state legislatures are enacting policies that harm trans people and their loved ones. Conversations about trans athletes play a particular and critical role in this narrative landscape. They tap into deeply rooted, sometimes conflicting beliefs people hold about sports, gender, fairness, and race that can be exploited to advance harmful narratives that have real-world impacts on both trans and cisgender people.
Conversations at the intersection of gender and sports have a long and racialized history. While most current stories about trans athletes center white women in predominantly elite individual sports, Black athletes like Caster Semenya or Andraya Yearwood have long been subject to scrutiny about their gender, invasive sex verification tests, and racism in their efforts to simply compete with excellence in the sport they love. Black and Brown cis and trans women have been used by the right wing as scapegoats to advance broader anti-trans agendas across sports, health care, and overall body autonomy. These efforts are escalating as part of long-standing messaging playbooks leveraging trans and non-trans LGBTQIA+ people as villains in the so-called “culture wars.”
Transgender communities, organizations and individuals, including athletes, operate within complex narrative conditions. Today’s conversations about trans people occur in a broader landscape of conversations within and about LGBTQIA+ communities. Insights in this trend report are particular to conversations about trans athletes, but many of them apply to broader discussions on trans rights and liberation.
Trans visibility across pop culture, sports, journalism, politics, and everyday life has increased dramatically over the last decade. Increased visibility is due, in large part, to sustained trans-centered and trans-led leadership, advocacy, and organizing. The right wing ecosystem has responded to the expansion of rights and increased visibility of trans and non-trans LGBTQIA+ people by fueling and amplifying a cultural and political backlash.
This backlash manifests in conversations using old narratives that characterize any and all LGBTQIA+ people as groomers, abusers, deviants, and dangers to society, especially children. These narratives create room in society for violence against trans people. Stories, messages and networks in this anti-trans narrative ecosystem seek to exclude trans people, especially trans women, on and off the playing field.
Alongside the right wing ecosystem are stories, messages, and networks fighting for trans inclusion and equal rights in the world of sports and beyond. There are also many stories, messages, and people with conflicting views trying to make sense of the issue while searching for uniform markers of fairness based on their own beliefs about gender, biology, science or fair play. While some may have immovable beliefs about gender identity, many people do not. There is a tremendous opening here to contend for narrative power by expanding the understanding of fairness, gender and the body across audiences.
This complex narrative landscape is home to competing notions of who belongs and what it means to uphold and expand rights without flattening difference. Its messages and stories often conflate ideas about identity, inclusion, and human rights. This dynamic context informs our narrative analysis and insights into conversations about trans athletes.
A note on narrative insights and trends: ReFrame is committed to building narrative power. We identify narratives by analyzing data at scale and across conversations, regardless of ideology or worldview in service of crafting liberatory narrative strategy and interventions. ReFrame does not determine what is true or false, nor the intent behind narratives and content. Rather, we analyze narratives - and their origin, speed, spread, makeup, drivers, and automation levels - across their life cycles to map narrative landscapes to support strategy development and implementation.
Trigger warning: the analysis outlined below includes anti-trans language
Rather listen to the report?
key Insights
ReFrame’s analysis focused on the time period from January 2021-January 2023. We identified several critical narrative insights about trans athletes to help us test assumptions and consider openings for intervening or inoculating against anti-trans narratives in the short and long term. These insights include:
- The United States has the highest volume of conversations about trans athletes
- Conversations about trans athletes are low volume but high impact
- Policy fights and individual sports, rather than team sports, dominate trans athlete conversations
- Messages supporting trans rights have a high volume and positive impact in flashpoint moments
- White cis and trans women in elite individual sports are the central characters in the conversation
The U.S. Leads the WAy
The United Kingdom is often identified as driving anti-trans conversations. We found, however, that the United States has the highest volume of conversations about trans athletes and sports. Policies and comments by U.S. athletes drive these conversations and shifting the narrative landscape will require targeted intervention and engagement with U.S. stories, messages and people. Right wing institutions, influencers, and accounts in the U.S. that oppose trans inclusion in sports are connected to each other and amplify transphobic stories. They also demonstrate strong ties with anti-trans groups in the United Kingdom, often participating and amplifying conversations across borders.
Qanon Ecosystem at large
These two images compare conversations about trans athletes - both positive and negative - in the United States (30.7k) and the United Kingdom (8.6k) over a 30-day period. These maps only include mentions where the specific country origin is confirmed or explicitly identified. It only represents a slice of conversation within a geographic area.
Conversations about Trans Athletes in the United States and the UK | December 1, 2022-January 1, 2023 | Zignal Labs
.png)
A Low Volume, High Impact Conversation
Conversations about trans athletes and their participation in sports operate at a much lower volume compared to other conversations we encounter on the news or at the dinner table. Mentions of trans athletes typically range from 40,000-90,000 mentions per month, exceeding 100,000 mentions during flashpoint moments. Mentions of reproductive justice or the climate crisis reach into the millions.
Conversations about trans athletes wield great influence despite their relatively low volume. They shape school-based policies about both sports and gender identity at local and state levels. They inform statements made by political leaders. Discussions of trans athletes also play a key role in the recent shifts in standards used by regulatory bodies governing organized sports. A lower volume may indicate that there is more space to reshape the conversation by amplifying narratives that support trans liberation.
total mentions of Climate Crisis, Reproductive Justice,Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Trans Athletes
This chart compares conversational volume between four distinct topics over the course of 30 days. The Climate Crisis operates at the highest volume. Spikes in Reproductive Justice and Critical Race Theory (CRT) conversations were driven by the anniversary of Roe v. Wade and Governor DeSantis’ attack on Black history curriculum in Florida at the start of Black History Month, respectively. Trans Athlete conversations operate at the lowest volume during this time period.
Conversations about Climate Crisis, Reproductive Justice, Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Trans Athletes | January 16-February 17, 2023 | Zignal Labs
Individual Sports and
Policy Fights
Two concepts, both relying on a narrow definition of fairness centered on sex-based differences, drive conversations about trans people and sports. The first driver focuses on the wins and losses of individual athletes. These stories typically center white trans and cis women. There are few stories about non-binary, trans male athletes or athletes of color in these conversations. The absence of these stories underscores the targeted attacks against trans women, the invisibility of harms against Black and Brown athletes and reinforces a gender binary that suggests trans men don’t hold a competitive advantage over cis men because they were assigned female at birth.
Policy fights are a second driver, particularly when right wing legislators introduce or pass anti-trans regulations and legislation. State legislatures and governors like Ron DeSantis and Glenn Youngkin are main characters in these stories. These stories are connected by a focus on collegiate and K-12 sports in public schools. They’re also connected to the ongoing attacks on Black bodies seen in the sex and gender-based scrutiny of athletes like Caster Semeyna and the more recent manufactured crisis around Critical Race Theory (CRT).
Many of the same politicians, leaders, and groups behind today’s anti-trans stories also amplified the CRT panic in the summer of 2021 and sought to ban Black history in public schools. This is part of a broad and historically successful Republican strategy to energize its base using fights around public schools and the trope of “innocent white children” while dividing people outside of their base using issues like gender, race or sexuality.
A December 2022 spike in conversations about trans athletes was driven by Ohio’s sports ban, the Olympic Committee's new IOC framework, and the dismissal of a challenge to Connecticut’s policy allowing trans girls to compete in sports. We can expect more spikes as state legislatures across the country introduce and debate bills impinging on trans rights.
Total Mentions of Conversations about Trans Athletes
This chart demonstrates the rise and fall of conversations driven by policy fights and stories about trans athletes from January 1, 2021 to January 15, 2023. Spike descriptions:
- Week of April 12th, 2021 (70.8k): Driven by Florida’s ban on trans students in sports, the partisan divide around trans athletes, the possible NCAA boycotts in Mississippi and Florida, and a pro-trans article sounding the alarm on genital inspection in the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.
- Week of March 21, 2022 (173.4k): Driven by stories about Riley Gaines and Lia Thomas in right wing media and the Utah legislature’s vote to override Governor Cox’s veto on the state’s trans ban.
- Week of June 20th, 2022 (90.3k): Driven by the FINA decision to ban trans athletes who have gone through puberty and Olympian Sharron Davies' call to boycott trans women in sports.
Total Mentions of Trans Athletes | January 1, 2021 - January 15, 2023 | Zignal Labs
The Power of Pro-Trans Messages
Many state and local leaders are introducing policies that threaten the health and well-being of trans people. In these flashpoint moments, pro-trans hashtags such as #ProtectTransKids and #TransRightsAreHumanRights can outflank anti-trans hashtags that aim to exclude trans people from sports like #SaveWomensSports.
Messages like #LetKidsPlay that support trans athletes operate at a relatively low volume within broader pro-trans conversations. Overall, pro-trans conversations maintain a consistent volume over time and operate at a higher volume than anti-trans sports conversations.
We have seen a growing chorus of athletes, coaches, and sports leagues like the WNBA and NCAA apply pressure against states who ban trans youth from participating in sports. These voices of influence are thanks to the work of LGBTQIA+ activists and organizations who, in 2016, responded to anti-trans bathroom bills and forced some sports leagues to relocate championship games. These campaigns effectively undermined a common narrative operating at that time that trans people were dangerous.
Conversational Volume of Pro-Trans and Anti-Trans Hashtags in 2022
This chart compares the conversational volume of pro and anti-trans hashtags. Spike descriptions:
- Week of February 21, 2022 (67.2k): Spike for “trans rights are human rights” conversation includes a Texas order to investigate reports of trans children receiving gender-affirming care as child abuse.
- Week of February 21, 2022 (64k): Spike for “protect trans kids” stems from Greg Abbott’s attacks on trans children and their families and mutual aid resource guides shared in response; and a show of solidarity from the U.S. women’s national soccer team.
- Week of March 13, 2022 (49.1k): Spike for “save women's sports” was driven by stories that either supported or attacked swimmer Lia Thomas.
Total Mentions on Twitter | #LetKidsPlay or “let kids play,”#ProtectTransKids or “protect trans kids,” and #TransRightsAreHumanRights or “trans rights are human rights” and #savewomenssports or “save womens sports” on Twitter |
January 1, 2022 - December 31, 2022 | Zignal Discover
Trans and Cis Women Take Center Stage
White cis and trans women in elite individual sports were the main characters in stories driving conversations about trans athletes from January 2021-January 2023. Despite a long history of racialized gender policing and its impacts, stories featuring Black or Brown women, cis or trans, or about sports in which Black and Brown athletes make up the majority of participants do not receive the same attention.
These stories center the concept of harm. This includes harms against white cis women by including trans women in sports or simply affirming that cis women have been harmed, a statement often presented as fact. These stories are also often highly racialized; excluding Black trans or Black female athletes from these conversations indicates the high value placed on the safety of white cis women within the narrative landscape. Conversations about harm to cis women in sports are a key feature in stories about Title IX. Stories about trans boys and men – their successes, failures, or safety – are few and far between.
In this context, elite individual women’s competition acts as a stand-in for all sports. Stories focus on competitive collegiate sports, national competitions, and the Olympics rather than team sports, intramural sports, or places where people learn to compete.
Individual competition stories are repeated over and over again, shaping the narrative terrain and influencing how people define and talk about the issue at large. The outsized focus, in news media and beyond, on individual women’s sports with little attention to team sports poses both a risk of ongoing attacks against individual trans athletes and an opportunity to focus on belonging, connection and other communal aspects of team sports.
Narrative Trends
Gender and biological Sex
Competing narratives about gender and sex are dominant in conversations about trans athletes and their participation in sports. This narrative competition extends beyond conversations about trans athletes. Gender and sex-based narratives regularly appear in conversations about LGBTQIA+ communities, reproductive rights, and notions of what makes a family. Some of the key narratives are:
- Men and women are biologically distinct
- Gender is expansive
- A woman is defined by her ability to bear children
- There is no difference between gender and biological sex
- Gender and biological sex are distinct
Multiple story trends about trans athletes are operating within this shared narrative landscape. There are stories and messages rooted in bioessentialism – the belief that people or animals are born with specific, immutable traits by virtue of their biology – that seek to exclude trans people from all sports. These operate alongside stories and messages that explicitly reject the gender binary and sex-based difference as the primary way to define if and how trans people can participate in sports.
Other stories and messages fall into a more ambiguous category. Some express trans acceptance, inclusion, or tolerance but draw the line at sports. Others name the diverse lived experiences people have because of biological differences and embrace trans inclusion. These last two conversations are ripe for narrative interventions to organize people in support of trans inclusion in sports and beyond. Gender and sex story trends include:
- Trans women are biological males and should play with the gender they were assigned at birth
- Trans women are gaming the system
- A person’s reproductive organs and anatomy don’t determine their athletic performance
- Trans athletes vary in ability the same way cis athletes do
- We should have separate sports leagues for trans athletes
Multiple Flavors of Fairness
There are contending narratives about fairness in trans sports conversations. Across class, race and gender, athletes often use sports as a pathway into higher education and a better future. Widely held beliefs about meritocracy influence conversations related to scholarship opportunities. While some trans athletes play on teams according to the gender they were assigned at birth, others make the difficult decision to mask their gender identity in order to maintain their academics and athletics.
Dominant constructions of gender and fairness communicate that boys and girls don’t possess the same skills or advantages in sports and thus, gender competition is inherently unfair. Sometimes we see this narrative contest framed as a choice between fairness and inclusion - it’s a common feature in stories about if girls and women should be allowed to play football or join the wrestling team. This narrow definition of fairness relies on deeply rooted narratives people learn in gameplay as children. The conversation operates alongside one that employs an expansive version of fairness that centers inclusion, spirited competition, and collective wins. Critical fairness narratives include:
- Men have an unfair advantage over women in sports
- Trans people have unfair biological advantages in sports
- It is not fair to exclude whole groups from playing sports
- Sports are for everyone
- There’s no “I” in team
- Fair play is essential to any sport
- You can’t change the rules of the game
Stories that rely on fairness narratives focus on elite athletes in individual competition sports, like running and swimming, to validate claims that trans women have an unfair advantage. Individual competition is the focus regardless of age group or professional league. These stories demonize individual trans athletes and are universalized to talk about the unfairness of trans participation in sports in general. This idea of fairness is then applied to conversations about children’s sports leagues, K-12 sports policies and team sports.
Story trends include:
- When trans women win, they are stealing opportunities from cis women
- Trans people are locked out of sports and competition from school into adulthood
- Trans women have an unfair advantage after puberty
- Testosterone gives trans women an unfair advantage
- Trans athletes don’t have an unfair advantage over cis athletes
- Trans people should just make their own leagues or play in intramural leagues
Sports & Safety
Stories about trans sports bans in K-12 schools are typically found in school districts and state-level policy fights. Sports safety at the K-12 level is a wedge issue in conversations about trans athletes. It identifies a bright line around gender and sex and can be an entry point into anti-trans conversations. Beyond fairness narratives, these stories also emphasize the need for safe, cis female-only spaces. Narratives in these conversations include:
- Childhood innocence needs to be protected
- Cis women need their own space
- Trans women are predators
- Everyone deserves to feel safe
- Your identity is a threat to my safety
The protection of white women and white children at all cost plays a critical role in these conversations. There are also deep overlaps with the Critical Race Theory panic of 2021, including ongoing efforts to ban books by LGBTQIA+ and Black authors. While parents tend to be the main characters in stories about CRT, cis and trans girls are the main characters in stories about sports bans. These conversations often use the language of protecting women’s sports (or #ProtectWomensSports) and can act as an on-ramp to networks advocating the outright exclusion of trans people in society. Stories of this nature are where we see United Kingdom conversations making their way to the United States, typically led by networked organizations.
Sports safety story trends include:
- We must protect Title IX and save women and girls sports
- Trans women can play in women’s leagues if they have not gone through puberty
- To keep everyone safe, we should have separate sports leagues for trans athletes
- Everyone benefits from playing sports, they are good for your mental and social health
- Children are too young to talk about sex and gender
Body Autonomy
Body autonomy narratives are important to conversations about trans athletes and their sports participation. They operate within broader conversations about gender-affirming care which, regardless of age, is under scrutiny and attack in the U.S. and beyond.
In these conversations, body autonomy subject matter ranges from hormone testing that has excluded cis, trans, and intersex people like Caster Semenya and Dutee Chand from competition for years to the recent invasive attempts to track the menstrual cycles of student-athletes in the U.S. This makes body autonomy a key dimension of sports conversations for both cis and trans women. Women who don’t fit a particular feminine archetype are portrayed as a threat to their teammates, especially athletes of color in predominantly white teams. Stories in this conversation often use science-based arguments to either deflect or confirm that trans athletes can and should receive the care they need; if that care is dangerous; how it impacts their ability to compete fairly; and if the government should intercede on behalf of cis women. Body autonomy narratives include:
- Childhood innocence needs to be protected
- Trans people have unfair biological advantages in sports
- A woman is defined by her ability to bear children
- Trans people are unnatural
- The government does not have a role in the decisions people make about their bodies
- The government should regulate the decisions people make about their bodies
Narratives using bioessentialist and transphobic messages are key components of the right wing media ecosystem’s stories and are reproduced by many others. Influencers amplify stories claiming that gender-affirming care is medical abuse or that trans people shouldn’t have access to care well into adulthood. Networked influencers also relay messages that trans people threaten the safety and success of cis women and girls in sports. This aids in the spread of mis-and disinformation, including the harmful claim that all trans women are predators or the decades-old belief that trans women are men who cross-dress.
Body autonomy story trends include:
- Children are too young and ill-informed to make decisions about their bodies
- Making changes to your body before puberty will cause irreversible harm
- Gender-affirming care is unnatural
- Young people are the experts on their bodies and their gender identity
- Schools are keeping secrets from parents about their child’s gender exploration
- Gender policing of trans people will lead to gender policing of cis people
- All of these issues need more scientific study before we can make decisions
Network insights
Networks are groups of connected people, and they can be organic or organized entities. In narrative analysis, we study networks within and beyond a given conversation to understand who is driving conversations, if and how they are connected or coordinated, and places where we can deepen connection or build new bridges in support of liberatory narratives. Networks can be evergreen, nascent, or temporary. They may have strong or weak ties to other networks and often overlap across narrative domains.
Defined sets of networks play an important role in conversations about trans athletes, their participation in sports and trans rights. Influencers come from different walks of life and include elected officials, activists, cis and trans athletes, organizations and coalitions, legacy news media and cultural workers. Sometimes, these influencers interact with each other in shared conversations, but they also drive and participate in distinct conversations. This means that many influencers can act as bridges between communities and transmit stories and narratives between groups.
The networks and influencers described below are not meant to reflect the entirety of the narrative landscape but to give a sense of key actors who reproduce and reinforce critical, often competing narratives related to trans athletes in sports.
Save women's sports
These anti-trans influencers leverage conversations about sports to reinforce the gender binary and spread narratives with a narrow definition of fairness as an attempt to undermine trans athletes. One network example, #SaveWomensSports, has been in the narrative ecosystem for several years. Cisgender athletes who oppose trans athletes are leveraged as loudspeakers in this conversation by the right wing and legacy media outlets. These influencers also contribute to broader anti-trans conversations related to healthcare access, attacks on public school curricula, and groomer rhetoric. Influencers within this conversation include cis athletes, media pundits, and right wing organizations like Mara Yamauchi, Seth Dillon, Taylormay Silverman, Tom DeBlass, Bethany Hamilton, and the Independent Women’s Forum. These conversations are held on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Reddit, and 4chan. The mood and tone within them is urgent, intense, condescending and domineering.
network snapshot | #SaveWomensSports
This chart demonstrates the highly networked nature of the #SaveWomensSports conversation by Retweeted Authors, shown in the concentration of clustered accounts that have been retweeted in the middle of this visualization. Retweeted authors indicate coordination and connection in a conversation.
Mentions of #SaveWomensSports clustered by Retweeted Authors on Twitter | December 1-31, 2022 | Research by ReFrame via Zignal Influence Intelligence
Let them play
Queer, non-binary and transgender athletes, LGBTQIA+ collectives, parents, politicians, and trans-forward sports publications can be found within this network. They create and influence stories, messages, and content opposing narrow definitions of fairness and the gender binary while elevating representation and participation in sports for all. They also contribute to broader conversations on trans rights. The mood and tone in this conversation is informative, dedicated, protective and friendly.
The Let Them Play network can be found on Instagram and Twitter. Its members also serve as loudspeakers in conversations about trans athletes on TikTok, often experiencing virality there. This content does not make it onto other platforms like Facebook or Reddit, creating a narrative void where anti-trans narratives proliferate. We have seen pro-trans athlete content play out in hashtags like #LetKidsPlay. While #LetKidsPlay had various spikes in conversational volume in 2021, we found very little evidence that demonstrates networked or coordinated efforts to advance this messaging in 2022.
While the influencers and organizations within the Trans Rights Are Human Rights and Let Them Play networks do not display the same level of coordination as the Save Women’s Sports network does, they are moving shared messages and stories across the same set of platforms. Deeper coordination between this network and the Trans Rights Are Human Rights network described below can help siloed conversations by and about trans athletes break out and spread to persuadable audiences while also inviting other values aligned influencers into the conversation. Some cis athletes have vocalized their support of trans athletes, including Becky Sauerbrunn, Megan Rapinoe, and Kelly Holmes. Influencers within this network include Parker Landon, Dan P. Rice, Elliot Page, Griffin Maxwell Brooks, and Schuyler Bailar.
Network Snapshot | #letkidsplay
This chart demonstrates the uncoordinated nature of the #LetKidsPlay conversation by Retweeted Authors, shown in the many different clusters and smaller spread-out individual accounts that have been retweeted in the middle of this visualization. Retweeted authors indicate coordination and connection in a conversation.
Mentions of #LetKidsPlay clustered by Retweeted Authors on Twitter | December 1-31, 2022 | Research by ReFrame via Zignal Influence Intelligence
Trans rights are human rights
This network of influencers mostly supports trans rights but is not always found in conversations about trans inclusion in sports. There is evidence that a small group of anti-trans trolls uplift groomer messages in this network. Trans-positive influencers inside the network are the loudest during events like Trans Day of Visibility, moving to take advantage of political and cultural moments. The messages, stories, and narratives within “trans rights are human rights” conversations operate at a higher volume because of the ways they emerge across LGBTQIA+ issues inside of the narrative ecosystem. There is room to organize and actively engage these folks in conversations about trans athletes. Influencers within this conversation include politicians, LGBTQIA+ media, queer and trans activists, and cultural workers. Influencers include Jamie Lee Curtis, Erin Reed, and Laverne Cox. These conversations happen primarily on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and Reddit. The mood and tone within conversations inside of this network is informative, easygoing, warm and persuasive.
#TransRightsAreHumanRights Conversation Cluster on Twitter
This chart demonstrates the uncoordinated nature of the #TransRightsAreHumanRights conversation by Retweeted Authors, shown in the many different clusters and smaller spread out individual accounts in the middle of this visualization. Retweeted authors indicate coordination and connection in a conversation.
Mentions of #TransRightsAreHumanRights clustered by Retweeted Authors on Twitter | December 1-31, 2022 | Research by ReFrame via Zignal Influence Intelligence
The narrative and network analysis in this report is meant to provide a snapshot of the current landscape to develop short and long term strategies that support trans lives and LGBTQIA+ liberation. Right now, there are competing narratives around trans athletes. But that also means there are many opportunities to make narrative interventions and reshape the conversations. The lower volume nature of this conversation means there are openings to shift it by amplifying pro-trans messages and stories in flashpoint moments and beyond. There is space to contest the narrow definitions of fairness and gender by leveraging powerful narratives around sports - like teamwork, problem solving and resilience - and connecting the struggles of cis and trans women on and off the field.
Contributors
Andrade
STRATEGIST
CHAER
SENIOR RESEARCH ASSOCIATE
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
FICKES
COPY EDITOR
HENDERSON
DESIGNER
HORWITZ
Athlete
LGBTQ+ Educator
HYNES
PROGRAM MANAGER
JACKSON
PROGRAM MANAGER
OSAGHAE
COORDINATOR
RHYNE
SENIOR ADVISOR
ST. LOUIS
COORDINATOR
WHaLeN
DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS CONSULTANT
FORMER ATHLETE
About This is Signals
Signals is a visionary project fueled by wit, imagination, fortitude, and caffeine. We ingest, digest, and dissect social, cultural, and political conversations of the moment and across time and space. We use the hard skills of grassroots organizing and strategic communications, the thinking of designers and futurists, the technology of big listening, and the wisdom of our ancestors. Signals is brought to you by ReFrame.
To receive future reports and narrative analysis sign up here.
Have feedback? We’d love to hear from you.