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Prism Youth Community: Using Film to Create Better Allies

Prism Youth Community

The passage of marriage equality in Indiana last year was a landmark achievement for gay rights, but the fight for equality is far from over. Leaders from the local gay-rights organization Bloomington PRIDE say one of the next big challenges is to provide outreach for LGBTQ youth.

The community-based Prism Youth Community is working to provide that outreach.

LGBTQ Representations in the Media



Every Thursday, members of the Prism Youth Community gather at Rachael's Cafe to discuss issues that are important to them. This week, they are talking about LGBTQ representations in the media.

The youth members stressed that accurate and central representation of LGBTQ characters in the media are key. Sam Ison, one of the youth leaders of Prism, says "it's no surprise that television and film always impact the culture and how people perceive things. And it's important for LGBT people to represented there."

Becca Smith, another youth leader, added that while today we see a lot of representation of LGBTQ characters in the media, "some of it is not the most accurate."

During their discussion, they were praising the nuance and accuracy in the portrayal of the character Adam Torres, a female-to-male transgender teen on the progressive Canadian television show Degrassi, played by Jordon Todosey.

There's one scene from the television show which shows Adam chastising his mother about "pronoun problems," after she refers to Adam as a "she" instead of a "he," an accurate portrayal of what a transgender teen might encounter in everyday life.

PRIDE Film Festival



Providing accurate and central representations of LGBTQ characters is also one of the goals of the 12th-annual Bloomington PRIDE Film Festival, organized by Bloomington PRIDE, the parent organization to the PRISM Youth Community. The film festival will be taking place from January 29th through the 31st at the Buskirk-Chumley theater in Bloomington.

The film festival will feature over 20 short and feature-length films, both created by and featuring members of the LGBTQ community around the globe.

Laura Ingram, the program director and founder of the Prism Youth Community, sees the PRIDE Film Festival as a great opportunity for the members of the Prism Youth Community. "To have an entire weekend that's focused on queer film with queer characters being central," she says, "I think for our youth to see that is huge."

Creating a Safe Space



Ingram founded PRISM in February of 2014 as a community-based program, rather than a school-based program, for LGBTQ youth to gather and address important issues.

"All youth, no matter how they identify benefit from being part of a community," Ingram said, "and having a safe place in which they can talk about, specifically for these youth, maybe things like sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, even just looking at marginalization and oppression."

"It's a place for people to discover who they are," Ison, one of the youth members, added, "which is important for anyone. It's a place where nobody will judge you, and you can feel safe."

In July, PRISM was brought under the umbrella of Bloomington PRIDE. Its members are aged 12 to 20, and come from over 20 different schools across 6 different counties.

Michael Cooper, the Assistant Director of PRISM, emphasizes that community-based outreach for LGBTQ youth is especially important now, as the landscape of gay rights is changing in Indiana. He says, "a lot of people are assuming that with gay marriage happening that gay discrimination is ending and sexual minority people are equal now. But that's not really what's reflected in the lives of these kids, and they still need a lot of resources."

Creating Better Allies Through Film



In addition to organizing some fun events for the youth-like a glow stick party, or the upcoming Winter Rainbow Ball-one of PRISM's main goals is to help create better LGBTQ allies and advocates within the community.

One of the things PRISM has done to accomplish this goal is by making their own film. And that film is going to be featured in this weekend's PRIDE Film Festival.

The film will air on Saturday afternoon during the "Teen Screening" event at the festival. It's essentially a Public Service Announcement. It's presented as a way for all youth in community to learn about issues of gender and sexuality, and how to become a better ally to the LGBTQ community.

In the film, members of Prism give advice about respecting the LGBTQ community like "don't use a person's sexual orientation, their identity, or their expression as a joke," or "keep in mind that there are LGBTQ people around you, and do not be a passive observer. If someone says something you know is offensive, don't be afraid to correct them."

The film is also a way for PRISM to teach others about their organization. For Ingram, it was essential that the film was created by the youth, and in their own voice - not in the voice of someone speaking on their behalf.

"Too often adults speak on behalf of youth," she said, "[saying] 'Hey, this is what you think!' That might be true, but you can also hear that directly from them!"

It all comes back to this idea of accurate representations in the media. So, during the PRIDE Film Festival, what's a better way to accurately represent the LGBTQ youth in our community, than to have them represent themselves?

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