These films, either in their entirety or as excerpts, are great ways to initiate dialogues with new teachers, administration, students, and families about the importance of actively addressing LGBTIQ issues in school. The UCLA Library has many of these films available.
(see below on page for descriptions and links)
1. For the Bible Tells Me So
2. It’s Elementary
3. It’s STILL Elementary
4. Let’s Get Real
5. Out of the Past: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Rights in America
6. Straightlaced
7. That’s a Family!
8. The Times of Harvey Milk
9. TransGeneration
10. XXYY
1. For the Bible Tells Me So
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpJAucyX7RE&feature=player_embedded
It’s a common myth that religion and homosexuality don’t mix; a myth often championed by conservative religious leaders spouting select passages of scripture out of context. For the Bible Tells Me So tells the story of how right-wing religious leaders have spun a faulty biblical storyline on homosexuality, and how they have used this faulty interpretation to stigmatize the gay community around the globe. The film tells the story of four families – including the families of Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson, and Chrissy Gephardt, daughter of former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt – and how religion has informed their views on homosexuality. The most powerful storyline, however, comes from a mother who tells a deeply personal story about castigating her daughter after the daughter came out as a lesbian. Months later, her daughter committed suicide by hanging herself in her apartment. Today, the mother goes around speaking to groups of LGBT people and parents, shedding light on how religion can be used as a tool to welcome and support LGBT sons and daughters, not stigmatize them. Hands down, For the Bible Tells Me So is a powerful film for anyone who has ever wrestled with questions of homosexuality and faith.
****
2. It’s Elementary
From New Day Films’ website:
It’s Elementary takes cameras into classrooms across the U.S. to look at one of today’s most controversial issues – whether and how gay issues should be discussed in schools. It features elementary and middle schools where (mainly heterosexual) teachers are challenging the prevailing political climate and its attempt to censor any dialogue in schools about gay people. Rather than focusing on the debate between adults, though, the film takes the point of view of the school children, starting as young as first grade. The results are surprising and, as the LA Reader says, “funny, touching, and fascinating.” Third graders’ jaws drop when they find out some of their favorite celebrities are gay; second graders react to a book about a girl who gets teased because she has two moms; fourth graders say it makes them “feel weird in your stomach” when other kids yell “faggot” on the playground and teachers don’t do anything about it; eighth graders fire a barrage of poignant questions to the gay guest speakers who visit their social studies class; third graders passionately debate the current events issue of the day: should gays be allowed to get married? It becomes quite clear that most children are affected by anti-gay prejudice in some way, and that they are very responsive to a curriculum that teaches respect for everyone, including lesbians and gay men. Assistant Secretary of Education, Kevin Jennings, says It’s Elementary, with its refreshing child’s eye-view of a topic that sends some adult racing to their school boards, “is the most important film dealing with LGBT issues and safe schools ever made.”
****
3. It’s STILL Elementary
From the New Day Films’ website:
It’s STILL Elementary presents a moving story about the power to ignite positive social change through documentary film and grassroots organizing. It examines the incredible impact of another New Day title, It’s Elementary – Talking About Gay Issues in School, over the last decade and follows up with teachers and students featured in the first film to see how lessons about LGBT people changed their lives. It’s STILL Elementary also documents the story behind the controversial PBS broadcast of It’s Elementary and the infamous right-wing attacks on the film and its creators. It’s STILL Elementary is a call to action for parents and educators to continue working for safe, inclusive schools.
****
4. Let’s Get Real
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQp8N7P8zsU
The kids featured in Let’s Get Real speak honestly and openly about their experiences. They do not use euphemisms to talk about the bad words they hear and say. Recommended for students in grades 5 – 9.
Name-calling and bullying are at epidemic proportions among youth across the country, and are often the root causes of violence in schools. Let’s Get Real gives young people the chance to tell their stories in their own words–and the results are heartbreaking, shocking, inspiring and poignant. Unlike the vast majority of films made for schools about the issue, Let’s Get Real doesn’t sugarcoat the truth or feature adults lecturing kids about what to do when “bad” kids pick on them.
Let’s Get Real examines a variety of issues that lead to taunting and bullying, including racial differences, perceived sexual orientation, learning disabilities, religious differences, sexual harassment and others. The film not only gives a voice to targeted kids, but also to kids who do the bullying to find out why they lash out at their peers and how it makes them feel. The most heartening part of Let’s Get Real includes stories of kids who have mustered the courage to stand up for themselves or a classmate.
The accompanying 130-page Let’s Get Real curriculum guide features valuable lesson plans, discussion starters, classroom activities and handouts for teachers to use in conjunction with the film.
When used with students, Let’s Get Real has inspired honest dialogue that establishes an awareness about their own roles in society and what they can do to prevent prejudice and promote understanding.
Schools and community groups may also sign up for staff training on how to use Let’s Get Real as a teaching tool in classrooms.
Recommended for use by:
Students in grades 5 through 9
Educators and youth service providers
****
5. Out of the Past: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Rights in America
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4ZY9qt4Ybw
Told through the eyes of Kelli Peterson, a 17-year-old high school student in Salt Lake City, Utah, Out of the Past explores Kelli’s history-making experience of forming a gay-straight alliance (GSA) in her public school. The protests, legislative battles and national media attention serve as a modern counterpoint to the history of human rights movements. The struggles and triumphs of Bayard Rustin, Barbara Gittings and other civil rights activists are also profiled in this powerful film.
****
6. Straightlaced
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN5rPAAhSxU
With a fearless look at a highly charged subject, Straightlaced unearths how popular pressures around gender and sexuality are confining American teens. Their stories reflect a diversity of experiences, demonstrating how gender role expectations and homophobia are interwoven, and illustrating the different ways that these expectations connect with culture, race and class.
From girls confronting media messages about culture and body image to boys who are sexually active just to prove they aren’t gay, this fascinating array of students opens up with brave, intimate honesty about the toll that deeply held stereotypes and rigid gender policing have on all our lives. Filmed in the same intimate style as That’s a Family! and Let’s Get Real, the heart of Straightlaced is candid interviews with more than 50 teens from diverse backgrounds.
Straightlaced includes the perspectives of teens who self-identify as straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual or questioning and represent all points of the gender spectrum. With courage and unexpected humor, they open up their lives to the camera: choosing between “male” and “female” deodorant; deciding whether to go along with anti-gay taunts in the locker room; having the courage to take ballet; avoiding the restroom so they won’t get beaten up; or mourning the suicide of a classmate. It quickly becomes clear that just about everything teens do requires thinking about gender and sexuality.
Coming of age today has become increasingly complex and challenging; Straightlaced offers both teens and adults a way out of anxiety, fear and violence and points the way toward a more inclusive, empowering culture.
****
7. That’s a Family!
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnYWCtX3Us4
With courage and humor, the children in That’s a Family! take viewers on a tour through their lives as they speak candidly about what it’s like to grow up in a family with parents of different races or religions, divorced parents, a single parent, gay or lesbian parents, adoptive parents or grandparents as guardians. This award-winning film will stretch your mind and touch your heart no matter what your age.
That’s a Family! comes with an extensive discussion and teaching guide, which includes lesson plans to use with the film, suggestions for facilitating classroom discussion at different grade levels, and additional resources for teachers, families and children.
Schools and community groups may also sign up for training on how to use That’s a Family! as a diversity teaching tool with young children.
Recommended for: students in grades K through 8.
****
8. The Times of Harvey Milk
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohd2txsNf0o
“If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.” Harvey Milk recorded this line shortly after winning election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1978. Milk has been a lot of things to a lot of people over the years – agitator, community organizer, populist, hero. In this stirring tribute to Milk’s life, which won the 1984 Oscar for Best Documentary, Epstein takes the viewer on a ride that spans Milk’s entry into San Francisco politics, his crowning himself the Mayor of Castro Street, his eventual election onto the Board of Supervisors, and tragically, his assassination at the hands of a former colleague. Humorous, inspiring and yet all too tragic, viewers will have to decide what’s the most powerful image – that of Supervisor (now Senator) Dianne Feinstein shakily announcing at a press conference that Milk and Mayor George Moscone were assassinated, or that of the thousands of San Franciscans who poured into the streets the night of Milk’s assassination in an impromptu candlelight vigil.
****
9. TransGeneration
Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyGLd4VKEe4
Though TransGeneration was initially a series of television specials, it’s worth including here because it was eventually released as one long feature. TransGeneration follows four college students during the 2004-’05 academic year, as they attempt to balance college while “gender transitioning” – that is, changing their gender identity. Two of the students are transitioning from male to female, and the other two are transitioning from female to male. Yes, the movie has a decidedly MTV reality show feel to it, but this is no Road Rules Meets Real World time suck (because we all know we’ve spent way too many hours fretting about whether Julie from the Real World New Orleans would wrestle Veronica from Road Rules Semester at Sea off of the top of a skyscraper). TransGeneration, instead, spotlights the nervous tension about how parents might react to their Trans children, or how classmates might respond if they knew one of their peers identified as the “T” in LGBT.
****
10. XXYY
From the Intersex Society of North America website:
In 2000, the short documentary “XXXY” by San Francisco film makers Porter Gale & Laleh Soomekh made the rounds of film festivals in the U.S. and internationally, to great acclaim. Clitorectomy and other forms of sexually mutilating genital surgery are a reality here and now for children born with a clitoris that doctors or parents think is “too big.” In this short documentary, Kristi Bruce and Howard Devore, both born intersex, talk eloquently and straightforwardly about their experience of a medical model based upon shame, secrecy, and forced “normalization.” Physician Jorge Daaboul (Director of Pediatric Endocrinology at Oakland Children’s Hospital in California) joins their call for an end to secrecy and mutilating genital surgery on intersex children.
Teach LGBTQ 