Groundspark

Kim Westheimer, Director of Welcoming Schools at the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, guest blogs for GroundSpark following an event last week hosted by HRC and the St. Louis Chapters of the Anti-Defamation League and the National Conference on Community and Justice. The event took place at the Missouri History Museum:

Too often, we get so busy doing our work that we forget to acknowledge the trailblazers who helped lead the way. I was   reminded of this at a May 10^th event at the Missouri History museum. Two films were featured: the new Welcoming Schools Film, What Do You Know? Six to Twelve Year-Olds Talk About Gays and Lesbians and the film It’s STILL Elementary, which chronicles the making and impact of the film, It’s Elementary.

It’s Elementary was a trailblazer. When the film came out in 1998, I was working for the Massachusetts Department of Education. A colleague of mine got a preview copy of the film to use for a national conference she organized for representatives from other Departments of Education. The audience at this conference was stunned by the power of It’s Elementary. We all knew this was something special and that it would be a crucial tool for years to come. The longevity of It’s Elementary’s impact is documented in the film It’s STILL Elementary.

One powerful aspect of the newer film is the clips of children who were featured in the original film paired with interviews of them 10 years later. In one segment, a child has a jaw-dropping moment when she learns that Elton John – familiar to her as the composer of Lion King music – is gay. Ten years later, and a student at Drury University in Springfield, MO, she can’t believe how stunned she was, but she remembers how much she gained from these lessons about inclusion and respect.

So in St. Louis at the Missouri History Museum, just a few hours away from Springfield, MO, I wondered how many other students all across the country had their perspectives broadened by educators inspired by the work of filmmakers Debra Chasnoff and Helen Cohen. How many of them went on, like other students featured in the film, to start GSAs, to become youth workers committed to standing up for LGBT students, or to come out, knowing that they were not alone?  Wherever they are, they are tied to a movement of social change, a movement that can take inspiration in the words of Cezar Chavez:

“Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.”

“I showed Let’s Get Real to my students, many of whom do not want to have these conversations and have a hard time sitting still. They were riveted. The discussion afterward was profound.”
— Kim Carter, director, Monadnock Community Connections School, Keene, New Hampshire

GroundSpark is partnering once again with GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network for National No Name-Calling Week, which runs through January 27^th. GLSEN is our longest-running partner organization, and in support of No Name-Calling Week, we’re offering free streaming of our film Let’s Get Real (view the trailer below)!

GLSEN and GroundSpark first started working together back in 1992, when Helen Cohen and I were looking for educators who might have the courage to address anti-LGBT prejudice in their classrooms. We attended one of the first GLSEN conferences (back when the “E” was a “T” for teachers and GroundSpark was called Women’s Educational Media) and told the attendees about our vision for a world where educators would proactively address all kinds of bias, including homophobia, in their classrooms.

The contacts we made at that gathering helped us go on to make It’s Elementary—Talking About Gay Issues in School.  Groups of teachers all over the country then mobilized to host the first screenings of the film, and in the process, launched many of GLSEN’s first chapters.  Kevin Jennings, GLSEN’s founder, is prominently featured in our follow-up film, It’s STILL Elementary.

Years after the making of It’s Elementary, we decided to take on bullying connected to all kinds of bias, and produced Let’s Get Real, which is now used in thousands of schools across the country. GLSEN also expanded its focus and today is at the forefront of addressing bias-related bullying of all kinds.

GroundSpark has been a No Name Calling Week partner since day one. This year we are excited to offer free streaming of Let’s Get Real for the whole week! It’s a great chance to preview the film and see if it’s right for your school or community organization. Or for parents, to make time to watch it and have a much-needed conversation with your 5^th – 9^th grader.

Visit our No Name Calling Week page for simple steps to get started!

One of the most enjoyable parts of my job is calling donors to say thank you for their gifts. I can’t call everyone, but when someone makes a significant gift that’s a big jump from their previous contributions, I try to be sure to pick up the phone. Last week I called Leslie and David Lagerstrom in Edina, MN. All I knew about them is that they had driven into Minneapolis a couple of years ago to attend the Twin Cities premiere of Straightlaced—How Gender’s Got Us All Tied Up, our documentary about teenagers grappling with pressures to conform to gender norms.

I had to leave a voicemail for them and then received this from Leslie:

Dear Debra,

I tried to return your call but wasn’t able to reach you so I thought I’d drop you an email. You had called to thank my husband and me for our donation to your wonderful organization, which was our pleasure!

You also mentioned that you were curious about our interest in your organization, which I am happy to share. Our 15 year-old son Sam is transgender. Born female, he has told us ever since he could speak that he was really a boy, and when he was 12 years old he began to transition. As you know from your work, life for kids like this is incredibly hard – society seems to have such a hard time grasping this concept and therefore what they do not understand they must persecute.

Sam has experienced so much bullying and rejection over the years, yet he remains strong and true to himself. Quite honestly, I don’t know how he does it. He is an ‘A’ student in one of the best school districts in the nation (Edina, MN). We investigated switching schools when the bullying was at its worst, but when Sam posed the question to us, “…why should I have to be the one to leave?” we decided to allow him to stay put. He is a member of the high school debate team, recently winning the JV State of MN tournament and in the winter he volunteers to teach downhill skiing to developmentally disabled youth. He’s a good kid but it is hard for people to see past the fact that he is transgender. That is why we believe your work is SO important! The more we can educate society about LGBT issues, the more likely we are to reduce and hopefully remove the stigma surrounding these communities. At least this is our hope.

I started a blog last July that chronicles our experience raising Sam – you can find it at www.transparenthood.net.

Keep up the great work at Groundspark! It is appreciated more than you know!

Since we released Straightlaced, we’ve seen more and more parents become visible advocates for their transgender and gender non-conforming children. Sam’s story makes us more determined than ever to get Straightlaced screened in as many high schools as possible this year.

A new report was just issued by MAP (Movement Advancement Project) that illuminates how public policy fails two million American children.

For years, anti-LGBT activists have tried to silence any school curricula that make the educational system more welcoming to children being raised by LGBT parents or guardians. MAP’s outstanding compilation of data and analysis will be an extremely powerful tool to end that silence.

The harm caused to these families by discriminatory economic, legal, and school policies is un-American and in-excusable.

This report provides irrefutable evidence that there is much work to be done to end that harm and charts the path of what needs to change.

As the organizers were closing up the main meeting room Friday night at the Northwest LGBTQ Youth Conference for Hope, in Meridian, Idaho, one of them approached me and whispered, “there’s a young woman in the audience who is in tears and she’s asked to speak with you.”

I looked up and saw her. Cute with spiky blond hair, her eyes red from crying. I had noticed her earlier, burrowed into the arms of a tall transgendered woman who was slated to speak on a panel the following day.

The room cleared out and Kyle (not her real name) finally stopped sobbing. She told me she was going into eighth grade next fall and that she just didn’t know what to do. “I’ve lost so many friends, just because of the way I am.”

She had asked for me because I had just facilitated a discussion after screening our film It’s STILL Elementary as the kickoff for the conference.  It tells the story of why Helen Cohen and I made It’s Elementary—Talking About Gay Issues in School back in 1996, what happened to many of the students in that original film, and how we had coped with vicious attacks from conservative right wing organizations that had tried to stop the film from airing on public television. (The only other time I have been to Idaho is when I came in 2006 to interview the staff at Idaho public TV about how they handled the pressures around the broadcast.)

The group had stayed afterwards for almost two hours after the credits rolled. It’s STILL Elementary opened up a floodgate of topics they wanted to discuss: Idaho politics (because some of the most heated battles were right here in their state), coming out, organizing Gay-Straight Alliances in schools, reading books with two moms, gratitude for supportive parents, and a wide array of teens’ experiences in Idaho’s high schools today.

“It’s a Christian school,” Kyle explained. “I just wish there was something at my school that was like you showed in the movie.” At her school, there is no GSA, no curriculum that fosters awareness of and respect for LGBT people, and not a single teacher at the school who she could imagine going to with her pain and loneliness. She said she knows there are many kids in the school who are LGBT or Q, but there is nothing to connect or support them.

“My mom is great though,” she said. “She’s here with me.” We agreed that maybe her mom could speak with other parents at the school and see if they could get something to happen.

The next day we screened Straightlaced, and when the audience questions were just about over, a middle-aged man took the microphone and haltingly told us that the part of the film that affected him the most was one of the last interview clips, when a student looks into the camera and reveals that he could lose his Eagle Scout status with the Boy Scouts because of coming out on camera in the film.

“My son was on track to get his Eagle Scout,” he said in almost a whisper, “but he wouldn’t do it because he was afraid they would do something to him. Why? Why would they do anything to my son?” No one in the room made a sound.

“He has all the leadership qualities they want Eagle Scouts to have.” It was clear that his heart had been broken to see his talented son back down from his goals because of the Boy Scouts’ homophobia.

I later learned that this father, who is Mormon, had attended the conference at his son’s request. “It’s amazing that he’s here,” the organizers told me.

When I meet people—like this father, like Kyle and her mom, and like Emilie Jackson-Edney, who proudly shared her experiences changing gender in the workshop after mine—in places as conservative as Meridian Idaho, I feel the arc of change bending. These are all good Christian people, who are struggling with their churches, their schools, and their community groups to ensure that all children are safe and loved.

“Do you think if you made It’s Elementary today that you would face as much opposition as you did in the early ‘90’s?” one person asked. I’m not sure, but I don’t think so.

We’re inching forward, but there is no going back.

Sixteen years ago, producer Helen Cohen and I were at PS 87 in New York City filming a fifth grade class during a civics lesson. “Today the law says that if you’re the same sex —two men or two women— you can’t get married, it is against the law,” their teacher explained. And then he set up a class assignment for students to debate whether or not the law should change.

When the news broke last Friday that New York had changed its discriminatory marriage laws, I immediately thought of this incredible scene in It’s Elementary—Talking About Gay Issues in School, the film Helen and I ended up making with the footage we shot that day.

These children had the opportunity, in elementary school, to think critically—with their teacher’s support—about whether or not it was fair for same sex couples to be denied equal legal rights. Today these same students are 25 and 26 years old! And they are part of the electorate that voted in the current representatives in the New York state legislature.

We couldn’t possibly have imagined when we completed It’s Elementary that it would continue to be so relevant and utilized 16 years later. But every week new copies of the film go out to school districts across the country.

Sometimes it’s because states have enacted new anti-bullying legislation and school districts need ways to help their teachers and staff members understand why it’s so important to be pro-active in addressing bias. Sometimes it’s because there has been some horrible hate crime or suicide and the district wants to do everything it can to prevent another tragedy.

And sometimes, it’s just because the cultural tide is turning and staff need support on how to grapple with their students’ questions about why the government treats LGBT people differently than everyone else.

Educators watch the film, or our companion documentary, It’s STILL Elementary. They use the highly regarded curriculum guide for these films that offers support on how and why to address LGBT issues in school settings. Inevitably these screenings and trainings build teachers’ understanding and confidence, preparing them to lead age-appropriate lessons for their students that are inclusive and welcoming to LGBT people and families.

Even more importantly, they support educational pedagogy which prioritizes critical thinking skills, respect, and compassion.

I hope we don’t have to wait for all of today’s elementary school children to grow up and become voters before we truly have full legal equality throughout the United States.

But for today, we’re celebrating the fact that if we were to film that same scene again right now in New York, the lesson would be different: today, in New York, two people of the same sex do have the right to marry!

Announcing Our National Straightlaced Partners!

Last week, the White House hosted a conference on combating bullying. The same day, both houses of Congress reintroduced the Student Non-Discrimination Act to protect the rights of LGBT and gender non-conforming students in our nation’s schools.

We can’t think of better timing to proudly announce our national partners for the expanded outreach and education campaign for documentary film, Straightlaced—How Gender’s Got Us All Tied Up, about the pressures teens face today because of gender role expectations and homophobia.

We’re honored to have such an esteemed group of organizations working with us to share Straightlaced as a critical tool to help improve school social climates, particularly when it comes to addressing stigma and social pressures connected to gender roles, sexuality, and sexual orientation.

They are helping spread the word about the film, showcasing it at their conferences, writing about it in their newsletters and websites, promoting its distribution with partner discounts, and working with GroundSpark in a variety of exciting ways.

You can help too. Is there a school you know that could use a copy? A social service agency or community group? Does your organization want to become a Straightlaced partner?

Order your copy of Straightlaced today. Or stream a copy and watch it right now.

Contact us to explore partnership opportunities.

Or make a gift to help GroundSpark keep reaching out.

Thank you for helping us, as always, ignite change through film.

Debra Chasnoff, Founding Director & Amy Scharf, National Program Director

P.S. Please check out the amazing work that all of our Straightlaced partners do each day. It’s an honor to be collaborating with each of them.

Originally published in The Huffington Post

Hats off to the Obamas for drawing national attention to the problem of bullying in our school communities. Hosting a conference at the White House to draw more media attention to bullying is an excellent step forward.

Like most symbolic White House gatherings, though, this conference recommended some good steps forward but also carefully avoided some important strategies that need to be put in place if we are ever going to truly stop bullying.

Here’s my report card on what I heard on the live feed from the White House Thursday.

Raising the level of public awareness about the importance of addressing bullying in schools:

A+

“Bullying is not just a harmless rite of passage or an inevitable part of growing up,” the president said. “We can take steps — all of us — to help prevent bullying and create a climate in our schools in which all of our children can feel safe; a climate in which they all can feel like they belong.”

I couldn’t agree with him more.

Drawing attention to the fact that bias issues underlie many bullying incidents.

B

The president deserves credit for acknowledging that many students are targeted because of some aspect of their identity. “[Bullying] is also more likely to affect kids that are seen as different,” the President said, “whether it’s because of the color of their skin, the clothes they wear, the disability they may have, or sexual orientation.”

He acknowledged the families of two youths who committed suicide last year, one of them, Carl Walker Hoover, because of being tormented by homophobic harassment.

But he failed to explain that bias-infused harassment affects all youth, not just those who have are seen as “different.” Anti-LGBT stigma and the pressure to conform to gender norms, for example, affects all girls and boys regardless of how they may identify sexually at any point in their lives.
Calling for system wide efforts for curricula that address rampant anti-LGBT stigma, racial and ethnic stereotypes, mental and physical disabilities, religious differences, and pressures to conform to gender norms.

C

Acknowledging the families of those who endured bias-based harassment is not the same as calling for pro-active education that prevents that bias from developing in the first place. It is definitely possible to pull school communities together to take initiative against bias. I know we can because we have been helping to do that for years with GroundSpark’s Respect for All Project.

Shifting the focus from individual responses to bullying to communitywide culture-changing ones.

B-

The selection of experts on the panel that spoke after Mr. and Mrs. Obama were focused primarily on psychological and behavioral factors, which, of course, contribute to bullying. But only one, Professor George Sugai, encouraged the discussion to focus on sociological factors, namely changing the culture in schools.

Advocating for funding and programs that train every teacher on how to address bullying and the bias that underlies it.

C

One speaker mentioned that we need more teacher training. While another commented on the fact that while 40 states have anti-cyber bullying laws, none of them have provided funding to enforce them. Lack of training for individual teachers and for school staff as a whole is probably the single most significant stumbling block to changing school culture.

Moving from rhetoric to action

B

The White House announced several programs that Facebook, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, and others are launching to step up ways to address bullying.

And kudos are deserved for the federal government’s launch of www.stopbullying.gov, which amazingly includes a section for LGBT youth. But the website has no resources to help schools and educators address bias issues, or to help train teachers or to help with a systematic approach to change school climate.

Overall Grade Point Average

B

Areas for Improvement

1. Tie federal funding for education to mandatory anti-bias and anti-bullying training for school personnel that focuses on school wide culture change, not just stronger discipline.

2. Bravely call for more pro-active curricula that help students learn about why all kinds of stigma, including homophobia, are harmful to everyone and how they can be allies to stop it.

Mr. President, you made significant progress during this grading period, and we hope you can realize your full potential in the semesters to come.

I had planned to send out a blog post today announcing our new partnership with Google, but now I need to also let you know about another tragedy that has occurred in the midst of our gratitude.

Yesterday we learned of yet another young teenager who was being harassed daily with anti-gay slurs and who felt that the only solution was to end his life. Brandon Bitner was only 14. Last week, he apparently deliberately ran in front of a trailer truck and was killed. He left behind a note saying he was tired of being called “faggot” and “sissy.”

His classmates are planning on leaving class today and surrounding Mid-West High School in Middleburg, Pennsylvania, with a human chain to remember Brandon and call for an end to bullying.

And as I am writing this, I just learned of another harrowing story. A middle school girl, age 12, was beaten up by students after she attended her Christian fellowship group at Hernando Middle School in Tennessee last week just because her name is Randi.  Apparently her schoolmates objected to the fact that she had a “man’s name.”

These incidents are another powerful reminder of how the pressure to conform to gender norms and the homophobia that underlies those pressures must be addressed if we are ever going to put a halt to the national bullying epidemic.

These events make it all the more poignant for us to gratefully announce that Google has made a $20,000 gift to GroundSpark to support our documentary-film based campaigns to address bias-based bullying in schools.

We also recently received an additional significant infusion of support from our longtime partner, the Gill Foundation, to enable us to reach out to more communities with advice, films, curricula, and access to professional development to address anti-gay and all other forms of bullying.

These two remarkable gifts make it possible for us to continue distributing our anti-bullying “Spark” through the end of the year, to continue to provide leadership in the National Safe Schools Roundtable, to respond to school district requests for support to address homophobic and gender-non-conformity issues, and to support schools trying to incorporate LGBT-inclusive curricula.

Free Streaming of GroundSpark’s documentaries extended to December 31, 2010.

Tens of thousands of people have shared the Spark on Facebook, through email, Twitter, or by posting it on their blogs or websites.

The Spark allows anyone to stream four of our top documentary films for free, offers discounts on DVD and curriculum purchases, and easily connects users to downloadable resources.

So many people have clamored to tell LGBT youth that “It Gets Better” and have shared the stories of what they are doing to “Make It Better.”  I’m so proud that GroundSpark can help put real concrete tools at the disposal of all youth, parents, educators, social workers and anyone else who is looking for ways to get the people they care about to start taking action to make sure that it really does get better.

Please put Google and the Gill Foundation’s generosity to work. Click on the SHARE button in the Spark and post it as widely as you can.

Finally, I found this video that Brandon Bitner posted on Facebook earlier this year of him playing a solo in a school concert. Apparently, he was quite a skilled violinist. I can only imagine what kind of harassment he must have endured that could silence this music.

As news of five suicides committed by youth who were targeted with homophobic harassment has spread across the country, GroundSpark has redoubled our commitment to helping communities do a much better job of addressing anti-LGBT bias, particularly in school.

We are making some of our tools available for free for the next two months
in an effort to get them out far and wide during this time of intense public awareness.

But we need your help. And I don’t just mean by sending a donation.

We need your help in shaping the public conversation and getting GroundSpark’s powerful tools into the right hands.

Click on this “spark” to share our resources and analysis with everyone you know who works with youth. We’ve made it very easy to insert in an email, post on Facebook, Twitter, or any website.

There is a lot of talk right now about more stringent laws and punishment for bullying. We definitely need strong, federal and state anti-bullying legislation. The full solution, though, involves much more than tough laws and rules.

We need to go deeper and address the underlying ignorance and stereotypes that contribute so painfully to the bullying epidemic. We need to build a culture of empathy and compassion. We need to get everyone on board—every student, every parent, and every adult who works with youth.

In recent days, many excellent new initiatives have popped up to support LGBT-identified students and their allies. GroundSpark is building on the good work of our sister organizations by sharing what we do best: sparking the transformation of whole schools from places of conflict and alienation to communities of respect and support.

We know from experience that people get inspired and motivated when they can see moving examples of honest, caring discussion about tough issues like bias-based harassment.

That’s what GroundSpark—through our films, curriculum guides and trainings—can provide. So for the first time our curriculum guides are available for free online and parents and students can stream our films for free into their homes.

Talking about how all students are negatively affected by anti-gay bias, no matter how they identify, is not easy. Nor is talking about stigmas regarding gender norms, race and class. But we have been doing this work, thoughtfully, and with great success for close to fifteen years.

To do our job well, though, particularly at this moment, we need you to help us spread the word.

You can help us reach out to the parents of the youth who do the bullying, the parents of youth who are scared to death to speak up on a classmate’s behalf for fear of being targeted themselves, and the parents who don’t know what to do when their own kids are harassed.

You can help us reach the science teachers, baseball coaches, janitors, and school bus drivers so they understand that it is an important part of their job descriptions to model how to respond to anti-gay slurs.

You can help us give administrators and guidance counselors support and tools to launch in-depth dialogues and school-wide commitments that address bias and prejudice in serious, constructive ways, and not just through discipline.

Please take a moment to share GroundSpark’s Respect for All Project with everyone you know who cares about youth. We’ve brought together our best tools on addressing bias, particularly homophobia. All we need now is you to join our team and spread the word.

Just click here and you’ll see how easy it is to get started.

We’re committed to change. Join us.

Debra Chasnoff
President and Senior Producer

I was recently out in western Massacusetts for screenings of Straightlaced and Let’s Get Real. At one of them, the superintendent and assistant superintendent of the South Hadley, Massachusetts school district were in attendance. They were very moved by the films and said they thought they would be very helpful to their work in the district. Bullying, gender, and homophobia must be on their minds a lot right now, because of the suicide of 15-year old Phoebe Prince, who attended high school in their town. Since those screenings I have been following the Prince case closely and today have an opinion piece about it published in The Huffington Post.

We are reprinting it here as well.

Arresting Teenagers Doesn’t Solve Gender Pressures

“It is completely understandable why there has been so much pressure on government authorities in South Hadley, Massachusetts to find someone to blame for 15-year old Phoebe Prince’s suicide last month.

But the issues involved in this case, and in the case of Carl Walker Hoover, the ten-year old boy who committed suicide this time last year a few miles away in Springfield, Massachusetts, are far more complex and cultural than a tale of bullies run amuck who need to be dealt with as criminals.

We can lock up perpetrators and institute all the anti-bullying rules and policies we want, but unless the responsible adults in every community–educators, parents, administrators, and counselors–find a way to open up real, meaningful dialogue about gender and sexuality based pressures and bias–what happened to Phoebe and to Carl is likely to continue.

As a documentary filmmaker who has made several films about youth, bullying and prejudice, I have had the opportunity to speak with hundreds of diverse high school students about the internal struggles they face every day to feel good about themselves in our culture.

Invariably over half the students in every high school classroom I’ve visited–private or public, in rural, suburban, or inner city communities–have jumped at the chance to talk about the pressures they contend with which are connected to societal norms about gender and sexuality.

“Please don’t go,” a female sophomore begged when we visited her history class. “We never get to talk about this stuff but it’s what I think about all the time, every day.”

Phoebe Prince committed suicide after constant bullying at school.

When I read about Phoebe, I thought of the many female students we’ve interviewed who have confided about the daily stress they face trying to make sense of the mixed messages they receive from the media, their families, and their peers about how a young woman is supposed to look and act.

Young women are constantly told that their value as human beings is determined by how sexy they are, how much skin they reveal, how close to some ideal of perfection their body curves match. And then they are chastised for crossing some invisible line and “going too far.”

One high school senior told me about the spiral of pressures that led her to turn to serious drugs. “I feel that people are judging me all the time,” she said. “I’m just paranoid, like, what are they thinking, do they think my boobs are big, do they think they are small, do they think my butt’s big?”

If girls fail to tow the line, they are invariably subjected to negative slurs and accusations connected to their sexuality–”slut,” “whore,” “bitch” if they go too far one way, “dyke” if they go the other.

And when it comes to actual sexual activity, it is very challenging to grapple with our culture’s double standard. “Like when a man runs around or sleeps with a lot of women, ” one girl complained. “He’s a player. All the boys give him his props, and they go brag about it. But when a woman tends to sleep around, she’s a whore, a slut or a ripper.”

Similarly, when I read about Carl Walker Hoover last year, I thought about the boys I interviewed who have shared their worries about how they dress, how physically affectionate they can be with their male friends, the expectations they face to lose their virginity and have lots of sexual partners, the way they talk, the way they hold their bodies when they walk–all to fit some unarticulated norm about the proper way to be masculine. They are painfully aware of how one little slip in behavior or appearance could lead to being the recipient of relentless anti-gay slurs.

“Having your sexuality questioned is a very powerful tool in controlling someone,” one male high school junior told me. “And I think that’s mainly why people say (things about that). Because it’s so easy to control someone by questioning something that they don’t know, by making fun of something they can’t help.”

Arresting those who bully may bring some brief consolation to one community. But it does nothing to create a culture where every single student is able to come of age in a supportive, nurturing way.

We need to demand that our school curricula help all students understand that they do not need to play into these destructive cultural messages and they can be allies to each other as they navigate these muddy cultural waters. And we need to work together to ensure that all young people have the space and respect to develop their sexuality and gender expression in authentic, safe ways that match who they really are inside.”

Our whole staff at GroundSpark is working hard to help everyone concerned about “bullying” to dig deeper and start dealing with the sexism and homophobia that fuels so much of it. Please get involved — share this article with your friends and colleagues, and consider making a donation to GroundSpark as well.

Last year I went to Greensboro, North Carolina to screen Straightlaced, It’s Elementary, It’s Still Elementary, Let’s Get Real, and That’s a Family! for several different groups of educators in the community. As often happens after these events, attendees left very inspired to take the next step in their communities to put these films to work so that the culture can change to create more safe, inclusive, and successful school environments. People who never before thought that they could take steps to pro-actively address homophobic and other kinds of bias change right before our eyes, and become empowered to take action. Take a look at some of the audience’s reaction to the film:

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Audience reactions to the Greensboro, NC premiere of
Straightlaced — How Gender’s Got Us All Tied Up in 2009.
Join our Straightlaced group on facebook!

So, I am was very excited to learn that last week, educators in Greensboro did indeed take it to the next level. Annette Green, one of the main organizers, sent us this report:

These were words written on evaluations by the Guilford County Schools teachers, counselors, social workers, media specialists and administrators to describe the Respect In Our Schools training they attended on February 27. The six hours spent at Wesley Long Education Center were jam packed with thought provoking presentations, exercises and discussions to help them understand the issues involved with creating safe and welcoming schools, and give them some tools to do it. GSAFE, along with PFLAG and other community groups organized the training, which was largely sponsored by a grant from Guilford Green Foundation. Presenters were volunteers from GSAFE, Equality NC, GCS, Guilford College and the NC Association of Social Workers .

In addition to learning what state law and GCS policy require in terms of protecting LGBT students, training participants viewed films from GroundSpark’s “Respect For All Series” (by filmmaker Debra Chasnoff) and practiced how these could be applied to various grade levels in the schools. They also worked in teams to identify problems and create Action Plans for their schools.

There was tremendous excitement and a sense of empowerment among participants to take what they learned back to their classrooms. Some other comments on evaluations included:

WE WILL!!!

GroundSpark’s work in Lake County, California is featured in an important story on today’s “California Report” airing on public radio throughout the state at 8pm today.

Reporter Scott Shafer wanted to do a follow up story on the two-year anniversary of the tragic murder of Ventura County openly gay eighth grader Lawrence King. With a grant from the California Endowment and the Ford Foundation, GroundSpark’s Respect for All Project (RFAP) has been reaching out in Ventura County to encourage the schools to do pro-active education with teachers and students to prevent bias-based harassment.

We also told Scott about the amazing work happening north of the Bay Area in Lake County, where we have been supporting a network of educators, parents, and activists to strengthen the county’s efforts to be pro-active and to implement comprehensive anti-bias plans in help prevent bias and violence.

Over the last two years, Cristy Chung, our community programs director, and Barry Chersky, one of our longtime faciliator/trainers, have helped community leaders conduct a county-wide assessment and develop a blueprint for taking more concrete steps to create safer and more welcoming schools.

Last week they showed Lake County’s Respect for All Task Force our new film for high school students, Straightlaced—How Gender’s Got Us All Tied Up. The California Report’s Scott Shafer was in Lake Country and talked to Cristy about GroundSpark’s work. Tune in today to hear the story (at 8 pm on KQED), or listen to the story online.

GroundSpark’s Respect for All Project provides films, curricular resources and professional development training programs to support school communities to be safe, inclusive, and welcoming for all students. For help in your community, visit www.groundspark.org or contact community programs director, Cristy Chung.

At every screening of Straightlaced where there is a Q and A afterwards, someone always, understandably, asks, “Who is Hannah Landers?” Because at the end of the film, a title comes up that says:

In May of 2008, Sue Chen, my co-producer, had booked a plane ticket for Hannah and her mom to fly out to meet us in San Francisco so we could film a second interview with her. But days before they were supposed to come, Sue received a horrible phone call, and learned that Hannah had been killed in a car accident. We all were devastated.

We finished the film without that extra interview and all knew immediately that we would dedicate Straightlaced to Hannah’s memory, and by extension, to the spirit of her activism.

Then we started working on the world premiere. Much to our surprise, Hannah’s parents, Richard and Michelle Landers, were really excited to fly out to San Francisco to be there; they wanted to be part of the big audience that would be seeing the film for the first time.

Hannah had told us that her dad was an administrator at a Baptist church. I confess that of few of us here had some preconceptions about what kind of views a person who held that job might have about the point of view in our film.

We wondered: how would the Landers feel about the film? How would they feel being in a theater filled with close to a thousand Bay Area activists?

It turned out our concerns were for naught. The Landers’ response was so moving to me, and taught me a powerful lesson about my own stereotypes.

“We enjoyed the entire evening and sincerely appreciate the time we spent with you and the other Groundspark board of directors members and staff,” Michelle wrote to one of our board members. “Everyone was so wonderful, gracious and hospitable – we are very glad that we made the trip.”

“The film is fantastic and we are even more proud of Hannah than we could have imagined. She was incredibly passionate and wise for someone her age and she spent a lot of energy fighting what she saw as the injustices of the world. She was a champion for the underdog and a spokesperson for those who wouldn’t or couldn’t speak for themselves. We miss her terribly, but are very inspired that her words and actions will continue to help young people.”

Fast forward several months. I am so proud to be able to tell you that on January 9th, Straightlaced will have its Kentucky premiere on January 10th, 2010 at the State Theater at the Kentucky Theater at 10:15am. Richard and Michelle have worked with Rebecca Woloch, the mother of another student in whose memory the memorial garden in the film is dedicated, to organize the screening. They will be doing a fundraising pitch at the event and want the proceeds to be split between GroundSpark, the Hannah Landers Memorial Scholarship Fund, and a local suicide prevention group doing work in Josh Shipman’s memory. Please download the event flyer for more information on the event.

We, too, are also inspired that Hannah’s words and actions are helping so many people—of all ages—along with those of all the courageous young people who appeared in Straightlaced, and all of our other Respect for All Project films.

Our new year’s wish for you is that you continue to feel inspired and courageous. To look inside yourself, to challenge your own stereotypes, and to find the strength to be a champion for those who can’t or won’t speak for themselves.

Thank you from all of us at GroundSpark. Let’s stick together in 2010.

Debra Chasnoff
President and Senior Producer

Help GroundSpark bring the stories of courageous young people like Hannah to communities across the country in 2010, by making a donation to GroundSpark today!

GroundSpark films make a great gift! Please buy one today or donate a film to a school that can’t afford one.

Hello to all the friends and fans of GroundSpark. I’m the new guy on the board of directors. Brittney Shepherd, our staff producer, asked me to introduce myself and answer the question: Why did you join the board?

Meet me, David Kundtz, GroundSpark's newest board member!

To learn more about my background and and our other amazing members of our board of directors, go here.

I’ll begin with John Hume and David Trimble, contemporary heroes of mine. Both politicians, Hume is from the Republic of Ireland and Trimble from Northern Ireland. They are rightly accredited with bringing about peace to the long and violent conflict in Northern Ireland with the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Here’s a quote from Hume:

“Difference is of the essence of humanity. Difference is an accident of birth and it should therefore never be the source of hatred or conflict. The answer to difference is to respect it. Therein lies a most fundamental principle of peace – respect for diversity.”

And here’s a quote from Trimble:

“There are two traditions in Northern Ireland. There are two main religious denominations. But there is only one true moral denomination. And it wants peace.”

We all want peace. Everywhere in the world. It’s possibly the most sought after and the most elusive of all human desires. And if you’re like me, you’ve often wondered, But what can I do to bring about peace? The thought can be overwhelming; I’m only one little person with very limited resources.

Which brings me, finally, to the answer to Brittney’s question: Why did you join the board? To increase and support and create peace. GroundSpark is a practical and real embodiment of the conviction that, in Hume’s words, “respect for diversity is an essential way to peace.” There will always be many factions, identity groups, and denominations but, in the words of Trimble, “there is only one true moral denomination. And it wants peace.” The work of GroundSpark is something we can all do to bring about peace. “Respect for All” says it all.

That’s the main and underlying reason for accepting the invitation to join the board. But there are many more. A few of them: Being part of a group of amazingly talented and caring staff and board members; being part of an organization respected and influential throughout the country and world; helping to give voice to children and families who are often invisible and ignored. Grateful and honored is how I am feeling as we look to the opportunities offered by the challenges of hard economic times and changing cultural realities. GroundSpark is doing immensely important work. May it continue and prosper.

Thanks for the chance to share some thoughts.

Sincelerly,
David Kundtz

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Wedding video of Del Martin and Phylis Lyon.

One year after Del Martin’s passing, we here at GroundSpark would like to remember her and celebrate her life. Here she is at her wedding to Phyllis Lyon in May 2008. Our thoughts go out to Del’s family as we remember this incredible hero and amazing woman.

A few weeks ago, I received an email from one of the teachers who helped us find some of the students in Straightlaced, letting me know that Bonnie Tinker, the founder of Love Makes a Family in Portland, Oregon had died. Here is an article about the accident. 

Bonnie, who was 61, was hit by a truck while biking in Virginia. I think I first met Bonnie in 2002, when Love Makes a Family helped organize the Oregon premiere of our film That’s a Family! Over the years she also interviewed me for her radio show, and always lent a hand to get the word out about GroundSpark’s work. 

Bonnie was a tireless advocate on many issues, but what I admired about her in particular was her dedication to speaking out about race and its intersection with family diversity issues. I am grateful to Adrienne Ratner for bringing this article to my attention in which Bonnie protested how 20/20 “edited out” the African-American members of her multiracial lesbian-headed family!

We hope to be organizing a Portland screening of Straightlaced in the fall and hope there will be an opportunity to honor Bonnie’s contributions at that time.

The monthly magazine, Lesbian News, featured a fun interview with me this past April. We discussed everything from why I decided to start making films, to my family and GroundSpark’s latest film–Straightlaced!

While the article isn’t available online, you can view the first page here and the second page here.

The find out more about Lesbian News, please visit their website, www.theLNMag.com

In 1984 I made my first documentary film, and launched what was then Women’s Educational Media into the world of filmmaking combined with activist educational campaigns. Choosing Children, which was co-directed and co-produced with Kim Klausner, my kids’ other mom, explored the then unheard of idea that if you were gay or lesbian, you could also become a parent. We interviewed some of the brave pioneering moms who had had kids AFTER coming out. Lesbians (and some gay men) watching their stories at screening events we organized across the country had lightbulbs go off in their heads. They went home, found sperm donors or applied to adopt. And voila – the lesbian baby boom exploded. Today there is hardly a PTA in the country without a gay or lesbian parent in it!

Read the rest of this post…

Our perspective on the recent spate of suicides committed by young people as a result of bullying is featured on the Huffington Post and on Facing History, Facing Today. In this article we discuss why these tragedies are occurring, and what schools can do to become part of the solution.

This week another young life was silently lost in our nation’s schools. Eleven year-old Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover killed himself after enduring months of anti-gay bullying at his school in Springfield, Massachusetts.

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Our op ed got published in the Huffington Post about the Eric Mohat suicide, Matthew Shepard and Straightlaced.

Here’s a link to the page on the Huffington Post, or you can read it below:

On Wednesday, 250 educators and students from Laramie, Wyoming opened the 10th Matthew Shepard Symposium for Social Justice by watching the film Straightlaced? How Gender’s Got Us All Tied Up. Before the screening, a reporter asked me how today’s climate has changed since Matthew’s brutal murder in 1998. “It’s deceptive,” I said. “We see gay characters on TV regularly now, but after spending five years interviewing teenagers about their experiences with gender-based stereotypes, I’ve learned that popular culture doesn’t necessarily translate into school climates improving around this issue.”

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Audience reactions to the Greensboro, NC premiere of
Straightlaced — How Gender’s Got Us All Tied Up.
Join our Straightlaced group on facebook!

In the 1970s, I was a counselor at Camp Rim Rock in Yellow Springs, West Virginia. In 1977, the last year I was there, I was an assistant head of the camp along with a young woman named Annette Green. I never thought I would see her again, but last week we reconnected for the first time.

Turns out that Annette got married to her high school sweetheart David, and moved to North Carolina to raise a family with him. She became a teacher and taught for 20 years in a relatively progressive school in Greensboro. And then she got involved in local efforts to get schools to address anti-gay prejudice. She came across our Respect for All Project films, recognized my name as one of her old camp buddies, and got in touch.

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Last month was a milestone for me and everyone here at GroundSpark. We had the world premiere of Straightlaced—How Gender’s Got Us All Tied Up in San Francisco! We literally finished the film at midnight the night before. And, as with the debut of all of our other films, I was a bit of a nervous wreck sitting in the audience, wondering how the 750 people in the packed house would respond.

Check out some of these highlights from the night:

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Click the above image to start the Flash Video

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We are launching GroundSpark’s blog today in memory of Lawrence King, the eighth grader who was murdered by a fellow student in class a year ago simply because he didn’t conform to conventional ideas about what young men are supposed to look or act like.

We hope that by spreading the hope and wisdom of the young people in all of our Respect for All Project films — Let’s Get Real, That’s a Family!, It’s Elementary, It’s STILL Elementary, and now Straightlaced, — we can help ensure that young people like Larry King can safely and joyously discover whoever they truly are.

We look forward to seeing what you have to say on this blog. So don’t be shy — add your voice to and join in the dialogue about the power of film to spark culture change, especially for students in every school.