It took 18 months and 22 reporters, filmmakers and editors in eight countries to produce the five stories on the lives of trans and non-binary people in the Global South that make up CNN As Equals’ series, Beyond the Binary.

As Equals has always set out to reveal what systemic gender inequality looks like, to spotlight taboo subjects, and report on them in ways that deepens global understanding. With this series, we wanted to share stories with CNN’s audiences that made visible the experiences of gender minorities in parts of the world where these identities are in no way new but where people cannot live openly, or where they face systemic discrimination, exclusion and violence.

Beyond the Binary – or “Binaries”, as we came to refer to it – cannot capture the full picture of every experience, everywhere in the world, but through this series you will meet people from a range of ethnicities and nationalities, from Brazil to Bangladesh. Though living in very different circumstances, because of their gender identity, certain threads run through every story told.

One theme is the struggle for gender minorities (whether they identify as hijra, trans or non-binary) to live fully and freely in the countries we reported from. The characters in each story struggle to access healthcare, safe shelter, public spaces and are often vulnerable to sexual violence, and harassment by the police and others in the position of power. In humanitarian contexts, they are almost completely invisible and so even more at risk than the wider population.

Perhaps because of these often very harsh realities, another common thread is how these communities show up to help and comfort each other, in the absence of institutional support. They’ve poured personal savings into providing housing; made each other aware of what bribes to pay to stay out of police custody; shared information on where and how to access gender affirming surgery or abortion care.

A final thread is the grave and consistent lack of (recent) data from academic, medical, civil society or government sources that would enable our reporters to put what they were finding on the ground into a wider context. As the business adage goes “what isn’t measured isn’t managed” and we saw that time and again in these stories. There were also no official reports of the many crimes people told us they were victims of (as they feared of retribution and further violence) which meant these experiences were often dismissed by the authorities, and we had to be resourceful and persistent to be able to corroborate and clarify what we could report on, while remaining sensitive to protect identities.

As Equals puts a premium on working with journalists who know intimately the issues at the heart of these stories so that trust can be established with communities who often feel misrepresented by the media and so that our journalism can be nuanced but still engaging. There are too few journalists covering LGBTQ+ issues in the Global South who are given the support and the platform to tell these underreported stories.

Finally, as much as we tried to find diverse stories to tell, we are cognisant of the fact that there is more to life than the suffering people experience and regret not being able to capture that more in the series – though there are moments of joy in many of the stories. Still, we hope that through Binaries you will be informed, maybe even occasionally entertained but certainly always touched by these personal stories as much as we have been.

Ankur Paliwal, Commissioning Editor, Beyond the Binary and Eliza Anyangwe, Managing Editor, CNN As Equals