Charlotte Clymer, a transgender veteran and activist, speaks on media communication.

“I firmly believe that there has never been a more difficult time for folks to enter the communications space,” remarked Charlotte Clymer to listeners at Washington and Lee’s Northen Auditorium.

Clymer, an Army veteran, activist, and communications consultant, spoke to students and community members on March 19, 2025. During the talk, Clymer advised listeners about effective communication strategies to get messages across.

Clymer pointed to America’s increasingly divided society as the most essential reason why communications is such a challenging field to enter right now. Clymer discussed the prevalence of “information shortcuts,” mental heuristics that create “an automatic assessment of someone or a situation based on one characteristic.”