Gender Creative Kids Canada is a not-for-profit trans rights advocacy organization in Montreal, founded by the parents of transgender children. Awareness of transgender rights has increased significantly in recent years. But so has transphobia. And transphobia is incredibly harmful, with research reporting that 41% of trans people have attempted suicide.

Within this context, they came to us with an open brief: to make the world a more accepting place for trans youth. This was the sole objective of the project. The You Inside Project is currently operating in Canadian schools, funded by a government grant to educate and engage children in a discussion about what it means to grow up questioning your gender identity.

Our most critical insight was that nobody is born transphobic. It is learned behaviour. If we were to achieve meaningful cultural change we needed to find a way to stop transphobia before it starts. Our solution: Sam, the world’s first educational transgender toy.

Sam was launched as the centrepiece of The You Inside Project, an educational program designed for teachers, psychologists, parents and child care professionals to directly communicate our message of empathy and understanding to children in a way they could easily understand. The project also included a short film, "Sam’s Story", and an educational booklet.

Our strategy was simple: stop transphobia before it starts. That meant our target audience was clear: children. Yet children would be almost impossible to reach with an awareness campaign that used traditional media channels, not to mention that with no budget, paid media was not an option. Our solution was to create a toy that children would want to engage with and a short film, "Sam’s Story", that they would want to watch. We used the film to launch The You Inside Project, telling Sam’s story before revealing the toy. This created an engagement with the character and explained each of the emotional steps that the toy embodies while also promoting the project as a whole, ultimately raising the funds required to produce 500 Sam toys for use in schools across Canada.

The You Inside Project introduced Sam as both an animated character and a toy with the launch of the short film "Sam’s Story". The design of the toy is based on familiar Russian nesting dolls so that children can easily identify the different emotional stages many young people go through while questioning their gender identity. The character design is simple yet engaging, allowing children to understand what Sam is feeling at each step, and why. The bold colour palette and facial expressions quickly convey the intended emotion at each stage while common elements connect the characters. Each stage was also brought to life in the film, deepening the emotional connection children felt for the character. Sam’s design needed to work as both a physical toy and as an animated character, optimizing the emotional possibilities of each media while ensuring a connection between the two.

"Sam’s Story" attracted more than 1 million organic views and significant media coverage from news and culture sites, LGBTQ advocacy groups, celebrities and design organizations. Passionate support for Sam came from HuffPost, CBC, LaPresse, Mashable, Upworthy, ABC News and George Takei in the U.S., as well as international support from Europe, Asia and Australia.

The film generated 3.5K shares and 7.3K comments, engagement that led to funding for the first production run of 500 Sam toys, which are now being used in schools as part of a government pilot project.

It will be many years before we will know the true success of the project in terms of reducing transphobia, but its impact has been immense for the organization, directly leading to their largest ever donation received ($100K).