The stories of LGBT students and alumni of Wheaton College are featured in a new audio documentary More Than a Single Story.
Created by senior Luke Vander Ploeg and sophomore Jordan-Ashley Barney, both straight allies, the project aims to educate and enlighten people who aren't LGBT-friendly through individual stories of LGBT student's experiences at Wheaton College as well as Wheaton alumni's life beyond the campus.
The genesis of this project emerged this past February during a chapel demonstration co-led by Barney and her friend. Over 100 people gathered on the steps of the chapel to protest the appearance of Rosario Champagne Butterfielda lesbian leftist liberal college professor who converted to Christianity, 'turned' straight, got married to a pastor and became a housewife and author.
"The entire idea of the demonstration was that this is a story that we see as legitimate, that she made that choice in her life and that is OK but it is inappropriate that college students are given that story to the exclusion of other stories about sexuality," said Vander Ploeg.
Vander Ploeg, who did an internship with NPR two summers ago, approached Barney with the idea of doing the audio documentary after the protest and they teamed up with a few others to complete the project.
When asked why he wanted to do this project, Vander Ploeg indicated that he had a desire to do something focused on sexuality because he cares a lot about it and wanted to talk about it although he wasn't sure if people from Wheaton College were ready to share their stories. After the demonstration he realized that people were willing to protest publicly and share their stories and that's why he chose this moment to go ahead with the project.
"Many people at Wheaton, because of how much they are sheltered, aren't informed especially on issues related to sexuality," said Barney. "We wanted to create a project for people who haven't had the chance to have a friend come out to them and/or hear people's stories who identify as LGBTQ. I thought it was just brilliant because everyone always wants to talk about the theological and political arguments so to bring it away from that and make it about people which is what college students focus on was such a perfect idea."
"Hearing someone come out to you or one of your friends share how they are thinking about their sexuality, not arguments or political talk, is what changes people's behavior," said Vander Ploeg. "That's what changes people from being homophobic to being loving and accepting. It's not telling them that what they are doing is hateful and wrong it's saying look at this person who is close to you that has this story. That makes it harder to be hateful towards them."
Vander Ploeg said that they decided on audio as their media platform because he loves radio and audio is intimate in a way that visual things aren't because audio allows a person to be present with the story no matter where they are listening.
Recently, Vander Ploeg and Barney held a communal listening event to launch the project at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in downtown Wheaton, Illinois. They weren't able to hold the event at Wheaton College because the administration nixed it.
"We had gotten faculty approval but the administration said that we couldn't hold any live event without administration approval which would've taken a very long time to get. No one protested the event and some administrators did come and support the event which was really great. Obviously we have different viewpoints than the administration but they did come and support us," said Barney.
Vander Ploeg explained that it was disappointing that the event wasn't held on campus but the important thing to remember is that all colleges have administrative processes that aren't necessarily conducive to students trying to do good things. He shared that they also had a strong desire to keep the event from being politicized because it would've weakened what they were trying to do.
"We wanted people who are homophobic and uncomfortable with the LGBTQ community to hear this project so they would re-consider their ideas about the LGBTQ community," said Vander Ploeg.
About 70 people attended the communal listening event and panel discussion featuring Vander Ploeg, Barney, and four of the student contributors. "There was a good and helpful discussion about whether we could've done the event on campus but most of the discussion centered around the stories that were shared in the piece. We got to hear some of the storytellers talk about what they said that wasn't included in the pieces." said Barney.
"A girl who attended the event said she appreciated that it was done in an audio format because it forced her to listen to what people were saying versus getting distracted by visual things like the environment in which the person was sharing their story or what they looked like or what they were wearing," said Barney.
The project included six students and six alumni who shared their stories using their own voices and three students who had their stories told by other people, a lesbian couple and a gay man. Those three student's stories are featured in the epilogue portion of the audio documentary.
Vander Ploeg noted that they ended up getting hours of footage and had lots of students and alumni who wanted to be a part of the project but they ended up not being able to use everyone's story.
Barney's connection to members of the OneWheaton group enabled them to reach out to alumni and many offered to share their story. She explained that they didn't partner with OneWheaton, the group was just a resource for alumni participants. As for the student part of the project Barney said they did have some who declined to participate.
Since a few student participants didn't want their names used, Vander Ploeg and Barney made the decision to leave the names of the participants out of the audio portion of the project and just focus on their stories. The participants who wanted their names publicized had their names listed on the project's website.
They are looking to release this documentary on other platforms outside of tumblr/soundcloud and have pitched it to a few local and national radio outlets. Barney noted that they are submitting it to an audio documentary contest associated with Resound.
"Wheaton College gets a bad rap in the progressive world because the college is extremely conservative so it's easy to paint us all in one color which is homophobic/not accepting but there are a variety of people here like us who want to see these issues talked about and have personally very liberal points of view like myself," said Vander Ploeg. "It's easy to look at what Wheaton stands for in the world and say this place is backwards and terrible and in a lot ways it is but there is more than one story here. I think that reaching out to others is the way the dialogue should be moving forward."
The power of stories and people and relationships are so much stronger than hate and arguing. It's hard to open up to people who are against the LGBTQ community because they can come off as very harsh and unfeeling but the best way is to share your story and try and show them that you are a person and not something that they can talk about over in a corner. That is the only way their eyes will be opened," said Barney. "Allies like us are so important because oppressed people can't un-oppress themselves. In order to have the biggest effect the privileged group needs to speak up."
See www.morethanasinglestory.tumblr.com for more information.