LGBT Rights Editorial Cartoon

By: Kate Franzen

When I was assigned this editorial cartoon, I knew I wanted to touch on a subject that was important to me. The topic of identity and sexuality is something very close to home and I wanted to shed light on how those struggling with identity and sexuality live their everyday lives. Constantly in fear. My inspiration came from those struggling with their gender identity and how many feel they can’t be true to who they are, they stay closeted. Their parents think they are fine and perfect, the ideal straight, cis child. But little do they know, their child is living behind closed doors, feeling alone in this journey. I wanted these people to know they aren’t alone and to show those without these struggles that this is not something to be ignored, there are people struggling everyday without you even knowing. I wanted to spread the message to be kind to everyone, you never know what is going on in their lives.


The process of creating this editorial cartoon was very different than anything I had done before, yet pretty fun. I first needed to come up with a concept, which came quickly to me. I wanted my cartoon to be easily comprehensible. Something with clear symbolism and labeling, like the labeled closet, and not too much going on, yet something that still made you stop and think. I wanted to get a reaction out of people, and I think by including small details like the body language of the child and the dialogue of the dad, people got the emotion I was trying to convey out of it.


I think I learned a lot from creating my editorial cartoon. I learned how to share my opinion without being too harsh, and I learned how to convey a message visually, letting the art speak for itself. With editorial cartoons, everyone is going to perceive it a little differently, and see things in different ways, and you just have to learn to be okay with that. I had to try to create something everyone would understand, but each individual reaction is going to be different, and I think knowing that I can’t control other people’s viewpoints was another thing I learned by making this editorial cartoon.