LGBTQI+ Campaigning in Asia: Case studies

June 17, 2019

Campaigning is both one of the most challenging and one of the most exhilarating tasks for a campaigner for sexual, gender and bodily diversities.

It takes us “out there” to face the public, on what often seems like an impossible task to change hearts and minds.

It takes us into the extremely counter-intuitive field of the human psychology, exploring what makes people tick, and what makes societies change. And more often than not we scrabble about with our inspiration and courage, not knowing exactly what works, how it works, and the ways in which we could make things better.

And yet campaigning is the moment when our imagination heightens, when we unite to make it real, when we find the right messages to “crack the code” of people’s hearts, when we come together as a movement, with our friends and allies. Campaigning is when our own hearts beat faster.

This publication aims to provide you with some examples of these moments. It is a tribute to the work and the creativity of activists campaigning for sexual, gender and bodily diversities in Asia. Hopefully it to inspire you to draw on your own creativity.

It also aims to share with you some of the insights and the lessons learnt through these campaigns. This is important because, in addition to inspiration, changing hearts and minds also requires some good knowledge of social psychology, campaigning methodologies and research.

All of the case studies summarized here are edited from in-depth interviews with campaigners who shared their learning with us. The contents of this regional campaigning report are first and foremost the result of the sharp thinking of the organisations involved, and the networks supporting them. This is a collaborative effort that has arisen from the inspiring stories shared by the campaigners themselves. We would like to express our gratitude for all the people involved who have taken precious time to share their thoughts and ideas with us. These stories and experiences are those that the organisations wished to share with us.

We wish you a happy reading!

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Don’t parrot… A short guide to avoiding common communication pitfalls

June 6, 2019

This article by Ralph Underhill, PIRC Associate and Director of Framing Matters was published by the Public Interest Research Center:

President Nixon famously said, “I am not a crook”.

With those 5 words, he managed to reinforce the idea, in the minds of millions of Americans, that he was, in fact, a crook. What he should have said is “I am an honest man”. When he used the word ‘crook’, he was parroting the language of his opponents, and simply reinforcing that negative association in people’s minds.

This is the first communications trap, which I call the…

Parrot, or the refutation trap.

So instead of environmental groups saying “wind turbines are not noisy eye sores”, they should be saying “the majority of people support renewables”. As George Lakoff has long argued, getting involved in denying things just gets you caught up in language that ends up associating your cause with unhelpful ideas. Here is a classic example of the parrot:

David Davis: “Brexit Britain will not be a ‘Mad Max’ dystopian world.”

Fig 1: The UK in 2020.

The point is, when we use words together – like ‘Brexit’ and ‘Mad Max’ – we are making associations in people’s minds and these can be unhelpful.

The second communications trap is the:

Chameleon, or the sanitising trap.

The chameleon (they are so awesome) is when we use jargon or euphemisms that make something we see as bad seem less terrible.

For example, why would a group campaigning on international issues ever use a term like ‘collateral damage’? It is a term created by the US military in order to make killing civilians sound more acceptable. ‘Collateral damage’ is a classic sanitising frame. Let’s call it ‘killing civilians’, because that is what it is. Likewise, ‘outsourcing’ or ‘down-sizing’ are other examples: they usually just mean ‘firing people’.

Fig 2: The original title ‘Killing Civilians’ didn’t play well with audiences.

The third communications trap is the…

Shark, or contaminated language trap.

While people didn’t go around hugging great white sharks before the 1970s, their image was certainly not as tainted by violence as it is now. The film ‘Jaws’ created huge negative associations with these majestic creatures, forever painting them in the public mind as man-eaters.

Fig 3: Woman saved from shark attack by giant lettering.

All words conjure up beliefs and associations in people and when we use terms with too many negative associations we can damage our cause. The shark trap comes in two forms, the contested term and the contaminated term.

A contested term might be something like ‘refugee’ which the right wing press have spent a long time trying to create negative associations with, but still resonates with many as people fleeing persecution. With a contested frame, we can still use it, and we might even be able to reclaim it, but we must tread carefully in order not to reinforce associations that are unhelpful. A contaminated term is one that we should avoid using at all costs, as we can no longer win it back. This might be something like “Make America Great Again”, where the negative associations are so strongly negative that the term cannot be repurposed for a different use.

The final communications trap is the…

Robin, or rose-tinted trap.

Robins are famous for looking cute, you will see them on Christmas cards looking like butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. But this is a lie, they are the Begbies of the animal world! If you have ever had two of them near you when picnicking you will know what I mean.

Fig 4: Begbie, exactly as he appeared in the original Trainspotting.

In communications terms, sometimes we seek to criticise something but the term used to describe it has overwhelming positive associations – like a robin. This means that when we use the term people see it as something positive that we are criticising. Let me explain. ‘Jobs’ are nearly always seen as a good thing: “you are lucky to have a job”, “this development will create jobs”. Talking about good and bad jobs just brings in the positive associations of having a job, because people don’t readily think of jobs as being bad. Instead, we must look at bringing up the issue another way, in terms of workers rights or working conditions, and sometimes that might mean avoiding the term ‘jobs’ itself.

A summary of the animal traps in poster form can also be found here.

Story or Narrative: what’s the difference?

June 6, 2019

We know that the world views of everyone are shaped by what “narratives” are out there. But what does this mean? and how does STORY-telling come into the picture.

This easy set of definitions developed by the Narrative Initiative brings a useful clarification:

Narrative Concepts

These core concepts articulate the different levels at which we engage with narrative specifically in the context of social change. Each category has discrete functions, expressions, and modes of transmission.

Story

Simply put: “In a story, something happens to someone or something. Typically, a story has a beginning, middle and end.”

Narrative

Narratives permeate collections or systems of related stories. They have no standard structure, but instead are articulated and refined repeatedly as they are instantiated in a variety of stories and messages. (Toward New Gravity)

Deep Narrative

Deep narratives are characterized by pervasiveness and intractability. They provide a foundational framework for understanding both history and current events, and inform our basic concepts of identity, community and belonging. Just as narratives permeate collections of related stories, so too do deep narratives permeate collections of related narratives. In Toward New Gravity, we used the term meta-narrative. Over two years of dialogue with peers in the field, we’ve evolved to a preference for the term deep narrative. We see that deep narrative lends itself to more illustrative uses.

These foundational terms are interconnected and reinforce each other over time. We find the concepts much easier to hold onto through an example:

The movie Jaws is a story about an insatiable man-eating shark
All the stories about insatiable, man-eating sharks add up to a broader narrative of sharks being dangerous and predatory creatures
The narrative and stories about sharks rest on powerful deep narratives about the human relationship to nature and a fear of the unknown

So when we are telling our stories of LGBQI+ struggles and/or liberation, how much attention do we pay to broader narratives and, most importantly, to deep narratives?

Sometimes our stories reinforce deep narratives which are broadly unhelpful, like the idea that there are two genders only.

The “screening” for deep narratives should be an essential part of message development.

Hope counters hate in polarized and populist narratives

June 3, 2019

This article appeared in OpenGlobalRights

Giving people a sense of optimism about and control over their future is the best way to stop populist narratives from taking root.

With the global rise of populism, and far-right narratives increasingly seeping into the mainstream, the most powerful way to challenge hatred is not shouting people down—it is empowering them.

When people feel in control of their own lives, they are more likely to show resistance to hostile narratives, and are more likely to share a positive vision of diversity and multiculturalism. People need to feel listened to and understood, to feel empathy, and to know there is a positive alternative.

Hope not Hate was founded on the very principle that if we are to counter narratives of hate, we must offer hope. Hate is often a response to loss and an articulation of despair. But when given an alternative that understands and addresses their anger, most people will choose hope.

Hope starts with understanding

In the polarised immigration debate, with advocates for migrant rights and open borders pitted against aggressive and sometimes violent opposition, it is easy to overlook the majority of people who sit in the middle, holding more moderate and balanced views on migration. Public opinion is not static, but it can move in any direction. If activists fail to engage with these people in the middle, who will not necessarily think the same way and hold anxieties about migration, the only people speaking to them will be those who exploit and amplify these fears.

These conversations are not about tolerating prejudice, and can take on a very different meaning for people of colour than for white allies. There is also a section of the population who hold engrained hostile attitudes towards others—it is simply not possible to change everyone’s mind. But for many of us in the human rights community, fear around having “difficult conversations” is holding us back.

Recently, our organization together with British Future, ran the largest ever public engagement on immigration hearing from almost 20,000 people and travelling to 60 towns and cities across the United Kingdom, from Shetland to Penzance, to talk about migration with normal people.

We found that it was possible to meet a consensus on immigration, and although the conversations we had were primarily for research, the conversations in themselves worked to change attitudes. Through deliberative discussion, and removing the fear of being shouted down, participants developed often left with more positive and nuanced views on migration issues.

We also found that when people talk about immigration, they project national narratives through what they see in day-to-day life. These conversations were often about so much more than immigration but about people’s kids, and their friends, about their problems and frustrations. They were about opportunity, identity and hope, and about where these things had been lost.

Changing attitudes means changing the atmosphere in which they develop

The differences we found in the way that people developed their views on immigration often reflected a broader story about dissatisfaction with participants’ own lives.

In Kidderminster, a market town in the West Midlands, we were told that “the good times have gone”. Lost industry and changing work, local decline, alongside changing neighbourhoods and increased diversity, meant that identity issues and people’s standard of living became intertwined.

To share positive narratives, make people feel good

Having spoken to people up and down the United Kingdom, I found that where people feel in control of their own lives, they are more likely to show resistance to hostile narratives, and are more likely to share a positive vision of diversity and multiculturalism.

Our recent report, Fear, Hope and Loss, pulls together six years of polling from 43,000 people and maps political and cultural attitudes in England and Wales to neighbourhoods of 1,000 houses. Unsurprisingly, we find that it is areas which have lost most through industrial decline, places with little diversity or opportunity, where the greatest enmity toward immigration is concentrated. These are places where up to 61% of over-16s do not have a single educational qualification, where jobs are few and far between, and when work is available, it is precarious and badly paid.

In contrast, we find those who hold the most positive outlook on immigration and multiculturalism are mostly in core cities or elite university towns, prosperous areas where there is ample opportunity.

Resistance to change is not only about a decline in welfare and opportunity, but these anxieties trigger a defensive instinct to protect and reassert a social position. In our conversations, we found that a sense of unfairness underpinned much hostility towards migrants and minorities. A sense that British or English identity is waning becomes more pronounced for those who feel that something has unfairly been taken away. A view that things are working better elsewhere, for other people, for migrants, offered a direction for broader resentment.

Understanding why people feel like they do about immigration is not about pandering to prejudice, but about genuinely understanding what lies underneath, and working to rebuild the communities which have lost the most.

The shock and despair many felt when Britain voted to leave the EU offers lessons on communicating hope. The effectiveness of the Leave campaign was about offering something more, about taking back control. Predicted economic damage of leaving the EU is staggering, but those who want to remain in the EU will not win by projecting doomsday scenarios. The pessimism felt by remainers just does not resonate with people who desperately want change. In a National Conversation discussion in Grimsby, a woman told me that of course things will get better after Britain leaves the EU, because “it could hardly get any worse”. If remainers really want Britain to stay in the EU, then they need to show how things will be better, fairer, and more hopeful than they currently are.

Campaigning with hope

Hope, an optimism based on an expectation of positive outcomes in our personal circumstances, is the best resilience to hate. What gives us hope means many different things to different people, but for many, hope has an economic element. As someone on Grimsby, a fishing town with high level deprivation, told me, hope is knowing “there’s a buffer between you and abject poverty”. While this may not seem to be asking for much, this is not a hope that exists everywhere.

Campaigning with hope means we need to understand what hope means to people, and where it is missing. We need to create the conditions where hope is possible for everyone.

The growing polarisation we see stems from growing divides in our society. But optimism is the best resilience to hate. If we want to shift the debate, we have to start by understanding where these perspectives come from, by engaging in meaningful ways, and by offering hope.

How LGBT activists infiltrated the Film industry, and why we have to keep doing it

May 29, 2019

Why We’re Seeing More Realistic Depictions of Abortion in TV and Film

This article was published on yesmagazine.com

Planned Parenthood has partnered with the entertainment industry to combat misrepresentations of women’s reproductive health.

Jonita Davis posted Mar 28, 2019

Over 8 million viewers last year watched while Scandal’s Olivia Pope, played by actor Kerri Washington, lay on a clinic table as she had an abortion. There was no dialogue about Pope’s pregnancy or the procedure, before or after. Simultaneously, Republican Sen. (and former first lady) Mellie Grant, played by Bellamy Young, filibusters to protect funding for Planned Parenthood.

The episode was reflective of a partnership between the entertainment industry and the nonprofit health care provider Planned Parenthood to combat bad data on reproductive health.

Misleading information about women’s health has long informed harmful policy decisions throughout American history. From the colonial belief that women are too delicate to govern to misinformation about abortion and the restrictions placed on reproductive health, these notions have been challenged by advocates for women’s rights and reproductive rights.

Since 2016, Planned Parenthood has collaborated with television and film creators to normalize sexual and reproductive health through storytelling. Involved are directors, writers, producers, publicists, and others, who participate in film festivals such as Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, and Toronto International Film Festival. These collaborations include providing set materials, sexual and reproductive health care information, as well as staff members to consult on scripts (to ensure information is accurate and offer suggests on where information can be comfortably placed), in addition to allowing tours of their facilities to help creators provide a more realistic depiction of women’s health care.

Through panels, brunches, and event partnerships, Planned Parenthood distributes statistics on reproductive health, including but not limited to birth control, abortion, teen pregnancy, and how abstinence-only programs fail teens. They also provide sex education materials that include the proper terminology for procedures and body parts.

Their project was inspired by the LGBT (the “Q” was added in 1996) community. In the late 1980s, the Human Rights Campaign and other organizations came together to directly respond to misinformation and attacks on LGBT people. Recognizing the influence of media—particularly film and television—they slowly began a campaign to normalize queer culture.

Alencia Johnson, director of public engagement at Planned Parenthood, said that television and film’s impact on the public, and subsequently public policy, propelled them.

“The arts are a way to shift policy, mainly because we’re shifting culture. Over 50 percent of people actually believe that the health care information they see on TV and film is accurate,” Johnson said. “Therefore, we need to make sure that abortion storylines—storylines about sexuality, love, relationships, birth control, whatever it may be—related to gender and reproductive rights are accurate.”

Johnson and the Planned Parenthood team are not working without some good intel. Americans watch a lot of television. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey found that more than 80 percent of the population watch TV as their leisure activity. And, they use about half of their total daily free time to watch TV shows and movies. This creates a captive audience of sorts that is receptive, but only if the content is subtle and in some way connected to some part of the viewer’s own lived experience.

For example, in the aforementioned Scandal episode, very little if any dialogue included the word abortion. But women in that situation could relate. They could also relate to the information about women and reproductive rights spoken by Young’s character.

According to Caron Spruch, director of arts and entertainment engagement at Planned Parenthood, the key is to make the information as normal and easily digestible as possible for older and younger viewers.

“I believe art is supposed to instigate change and move the conversation forward.”

“Film, TV, and video do so much to normalize sexual and reproductive health and erase the shame that often surrounds it. It’s one of our most important tools for educating people, especially young people,” she said.

Spruch and Johnson are confident in the approach because they’ve seen the gains around LGBTQ rights.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s spawned even more fear of gay people—men, especially. The Human Rights Council worked hard to help people who were discriminated against for their sexual orientation. But something more had to be done.

Slowly gay characters began to appear on television. Same-sex storylines cropped up like the one on Roseanne, which not only introduced a lesbian character but featured main character Roseanne Conner (Roseane Barr) kissing her. These small steps in individual stories and roles continued into the ’90s until the pivotal coming-out episode on Ellen, a sitcom starring comedian Ellen DeGeneres.

“[Ellen] brought into people’s homes someone [who families] can identify with, someone that they love, having an experience that they weren’t identified with,” Johnson said.

It would be years, decades, until same-sex marriage was legalized. However, that is part of the plan.

“You look at this model, and how the LBGTQ movement did this work with the entertainment industry and major corporations. That’s the work that Planned Parenthood is embarking on,” Johnson said.

“We’ve been around over a hundred years. People see us as the voice for reproductive health care, women’s health care, women’s rights more broadly. And we do see that there will be a shift in culture if we normalize people’s experiences.”

“As a filmmaker, I know how important it is to center storylines about LGBTQ characters and sexual and reproductive health in my work.”

And not only normalize them, but also “humanize them,” she said.

Johnson said she is thankful for shows like Claws and Dear White People that have taken on these issues boldly and normally beyond abortion to include birth control, breast cancer, and consent. And shows Broad City,Shameless, and Orphan Black, and Netflix’s Big Mouth, which often discusses sexual topics targeted at younger audiences. Following a visit to a facility, creators Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett included a Planned Parenthood-themed episode for the show’s second season.

Other creators have also been eager to get on board.

“I believe art is supposed to instigate change and move the conversation forward,” said Chinonye Chukwu, writer-director of the film Clemency, featuring Alfre Woodard and Danielle Brooks, which premiered at Sundance. Chukwu went on to suggest that there’s a need to center Black women in these stories around reproductive justice issues. “I’m interested in creating unique, engaging stories with Black women at the center [who] are navigating stories and arcs that are about more than just their race and gender.”

Filmmaker Dawn Porter echos Chukwu’s position.

“I’ve always been concerned with Black women and reproductive rights,” Porter said. “I’m also interested in voting rights and immigration—these issues are all intertwined. It was important to me to humanize the experience of Black women as well as low-income women seeking reproductive health care while filming Trapped. As a filmmaker, you’re the vehicle from which that truth emerges.”

Filmmaker Desiree Akhaven said she’s proud to stand with Planned Parenthood and appreciates the work they do “to ensure that people have the information and health care they need to stay healthy.”

“As a filmmaker, I know how important it is to center storylines about LGBTQ characters and sexual and reproductive health in my work,” Akhaven said. “These stories need to be told to help shift the conversation in this country and remove the stigma around these issues.” Akhaven said she encourages more filmmakers to join them.

But Johnson wants their joining to be more than symbolic.

“[I’m] not just asking someone to stand up for Planned Parenthood by wearing a pin, or making a statement on the red carpet, which is just as important. But really getting into the fabric of the culture. And that’s through [the storytelling content of] film and TV.”

Learning to Listen

April 12, 2019

My grandmother used to say that “if you have one mouth and two ears it’s because you should listen twice as much as you speak”.

Today I know this is a bare minimum.

But listening is easier said than done. This article published by ActBuildChange.org provides useful advice on how to listen better, so we can win over people’s hearts and minds.

When every conversation can spin into an argument, we are retreating to spaces occupied by people who only affirm us. We are losing our ability to listen to difference.

This is a serious problem for the state of our world. Once we stop listening, we stop learning and we lose our ability to empathise. This helps grow difference and division, them and us, hate and fear. This fire is spreading across our world and we will all burn if we are not willing to engage.

Here are some ways to help you find your ears again.

1. We need to get close

If you want to change the world you must get close to it.

As well as getting close to the people we serve and love, we need to get close to the people who are against what we stand for and those who stand still. You can not change the world at a distance. Working on issues of immigration, it was only when I got close to young people with irregular status did the work take on new urgency and meaning. It was only by getting close to political power, could I understand their agendas, limitations and struggles.

2. Be willing to get uncomfortable

Change comes through uncomfortable conversations. Where there is tension between two people and it is not all smiles and nodding. For example, that uncomfortable talk you are avoiding with your boss. You need to have it. Or the neighbour who stares at your headscarf. You need to address that. The local shopkeeper who looks at school kids like thieves, rather than children. Sit down with that shopkeeper. Lasting change comes through uncomfortable dialogue.

Not only do I believe you can speak with these folks, you can have good conversations with them. You can walk away feeling energised, inspired, understood – if you’re willing to listen.

3. Be Present

You don’t need to fake paying attention if you are in fact paying attention. Don’t multitask. Put your phone out of reach and be present in that moment. If you do not want to be in the conversation get out of it. Do not disrespect that person’s story, vulnerability and time by not giving them anything but complete focus.

4. Everyone is an expert in something

If your mouth is open you are not learning.
Buddha

Approach every conversation with child-like curiosity. Always be prepared to be amazed and you will not be disappointed. Never assume because of someone’s class, race, faith or job, that you can’t work and learn from each other. We need curiosity and hope in all human potential.

5. Keep your assumptions at home

Most people don’t listen with the intent to understand. Most of us listen with the intent to reply.
Stephen R. Covey

Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about.

When talking to people who vote differently to you, worship differently to you, have more or less money; share your story. Ask them to share theirs. Allow yourself to see what you do have in common. It’s likely that you both have been through struggle and joy. You both love your brothers, sisters, partners, more than anything else in the whole world.

Use open-ended questions: who, what, why, when and how.

If you ask a complicated question expect a simple answer. If you ask a simple open question, you allow that person to describe how they really feel. Simple, open questions will give a much more interesting response.

6. Your opinion comes last

Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.
Rumi

We seem to be much more concerned with personally broadcasting our opinions, than conversing with people different to us. All this loudness stops us from hearing the quiet, the nuanced and the subtle.

Put your opinions last. When you do that, people become less defensive and more open. They are likely to speak with greater honesty and a will to understand you too.

7. Speak to people on the other side

Ubuntu… speaks of the very essence of being human…My humanity is inextricably bound up in yours.
Desmond Tutu

If you take anything away from this post, act on this. Think in your mind to someone who you see as different to you, morally superior, young or old, fill-in-the-blank. Find out more about that person you may have negatively stereotyped. Ask them for a tea. Together make it your intention to understand each other. Don’t persuade, defend, interrupt – just listen.

In South Africa this is called Ubuntu.

We are all part of a much bigger whole. Through understanding and empathy, we will no longer feel threatened. By talking and listening and getting that balance of conversation right, we can drop our swords and reach out towards each other. It is slow and challenging work, but it is our only hope of healing our world and building peace.

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