Story sharing to educate

Story sharing to educate

Hoping to foster better understanding of the everyday lives of LGBTI people, the founder of digital story-sharing site Rainbow Family Tree is urging community members to share their tales of “life, love, family and loss” online.

Rainbow Family Tree founder Sonja Vivienne said the site was developed out of a digital storytelling initiative run by South Australian sexual health and education network SHine SA, but has morphed into an interactive community space.

“As a medium it’s great for people who want to be involved in changing the world and changing people’s attitude to those identity categories,” Vivienne said.

“If you look at the gay marriage debate as an example of a social change movement, it’s the personal stories that tend to persuade people more than legal issues or an issue of human rights.”

Vivienne said the stories people share are personal, but often have a wider message.

“There’s a story I made about my daughter wanting to write a speech for her school about how gay marriage should be acceptable,” she said.

“We went off to the rally in Adelaide and it ended up being crashed by fairly fundamentalist loonies and we talked about what impact that had on her.

“I then showed that story to the local MP as an example of why it’s not just about my rights to get married to my girlfriend but social acceptance from the point of view of kids.”

Vivienne said often depictions of LGBTI people in the mainstream press are not necessarily representative of the whole community.

“It’s that capacity to represent yourself, so regardless of what anybody else is saying about us, the capacity to tell our own stories on our own terms and with complexity.”

Vivienne said while family tends to be a key theme, the site contains a range of other stories.

“Personal stories tend to be linked to families, whether it’s about children or parents or a lack of acceptance or acceptance of family structures.

“But family’s a loose definition — whoever’s on your side, really.

“We’re all dealing with the same issues regardless of what the laws are, state-based or federally. There’s a through line that hopefully means people are able to be more supportive of one another in the Rainbow Family Tree space.”

INFO: www.rainbowfamilytree.com

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