Multi-segment marketing and advertising agency Orci has partnered with It Gets Better, the world’s largest storytelling effort to empower LGBTQ+ youth, to create Perfectly Queer, a first-of-its-kind card game designed to help young queer people talk openly about their sexuality and/or gender identity with their allies and loved ones. The aim? To foster much-needed dialogue which will not just drive understanding and tolerance, but help queer youth feel both seen and heard within their families.
“We are on a mission to empower queer youth to reach and fulfill their greatest potential, to create the narratives in which they want to exist, and to confidently express themselves around the people in their lives who matter most.” Brian Wenke, Executive Director, It Gets Better. “Taking inspiration from It Gets Better’s award-winning vodcast Perfectly Queer, this isn’t just a game—it is a tool to foster meaningful connections with others and to build community. We entered the partnership with Orci with a shared goal to help queer youth safely and confidently discuss challenging issues unique to their experience—and to break the ice on those awkward topics that most of us would shudder to unpack with a parent or guardian!”
The timing is critical given the significant disparities all queer youth experience—especially those from multicultural families with intersectional experiences that bring unique challenges to the forefront of what it means to be queer.
Research suggests that the majority of parents support such education beginning in middle school, although only 39 states plus the District of Columbia currently mandate sex education. It is also worth noting that the way sex education is taught varies greatly from school district to school district, and even then, comprehensive queer-inclusive sex education at the high school level is nearly nonexistent.
Perfectly Queer aims to open the discussion around sex education in a way that embraces varying perspectives to get to the heart of what sexuality, and all of its nuances, means to an individual. As a gamified conversation guide, the deck of 190+ cards, including 140 questions, touches on everything from personal identity to queer sexuality and intimacy, using thoughtful prompts and questions to not just enable, but encourage players to share. Players are able to ease into different areas based on how and what they’re feeling but can also pass on a question as needed by using a “Safe Exit” card. The game ends when one of five “Conclusion” cards is played, featuring a single question designed to prompt reflection which all players must answer.
“Open dialogue around sexual wellness is hard enough in general for young people to find at home or in school. You add in the nuance of queer identity, and it becomes almost nonexistent, especially for queer multicultural youth,” said Diego Andrade, Executive Creative Director, Orci. “Which is why, together with It Gets Better, we’ve created an experience designed to open up this kind of dialogue and put queer sex ed info directly into the hands, hearts, and minds of queer youth. We’re aiming to change the conversation, and in that way, also change relationships and lives.”
Seven states in the US outright ban LGBTQ+ curriculum in schools, five more require parental notifications. “This means that queer youth are proactively seeking out identity, intimacy and relationship knowledge from less-than-ideal (and sometimes unsafe) sources, both online and in real life,” Andrade added.
Completed pro bono, the Orci team donated its strategic and creative services in full. Since 1986, Orci has helped brands respectfully and authentically speak to Hispanic Americans, as representation and brand allyship are central to their belief system and something the agency emphasizes from a multicultural and intersectional standpoint. Orci refers to this as “earning the right,” meaning that a brand is earning the right to market their products or services to a community by ensuring that they are tangibly supporting that community in positive ways, as opposed to relying upon lip service. To that end, they’ve helped top global brands from Disney to Dole, Honda to Verizon, create lasting impressions and build lasting relationships with consumers.
