GRIN Campaign
Encyclopedia
GRIN Campaign, Global Respect in Education, is a transatlantic non-profit organisation and advocacy group which campaigns primarily for lesbian
gay
bisexual transgender
and queer
/questioning
(LGBTQ
) people's social and political equality in education. It seeks to end discrimination
, harassment
, and bullying based on sexual orientation
, gender identity
and gender expression in all educational institutes with an underlying message that "being different was 'cool'". It is one of the first campaigns of its kind to originate outside the United States, be run by students and intentionally international.
The campaign supports both direct action and a viral
photographic protest, known as “RESPECT” to help "make respecting people in school a cool idea" and ignorance to be “uncool”. The photographs show people in front of a white backdrop
wearing block rainbow colors with “RESPECT” painted on their face in the colors of the gay pride flag
. The campaign was created on October 29, 2010 by Bedales School
student, Claudia White. The RESPECT photographs are featured on the campaigns website, as well as Facebook
and Flickr
, the campaign also had over 1000 followers on Twitter
within a week of its website going live
of juvenile, particularly, LGBTQ youth, school students in the last half of 2010 both homophobic and transphobic, including that of Tyler Clementi
. It was established as a UK and US alternative to other, older LGBT civil rights advocacy organizations, which do not place as much emphasis on education, and focus only on the United States. The campaign hopes to build awareness in the same spirit as the Day of Silence
, It Gets Better Project, No on 8 campaigns and efforts to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell.
The campaign coordinated with Spirit Day
(October 20) when people are encouraged to wear purple symbolic of spirit from the rainbow flag
.
In 2011 the campaign has worked to add "amendments to the UK’s Educational White Paper
and are writing letters to corporations in the UK that they believe are being homophobic or transphobic." In the summer of 2012 the campaign hopes to get a grant to travel to the United States to several major cities to teach on discrimination based bullying and utilize the RESPECT photographic campaign.
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
bisexual transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
and queer
Queer
Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...
/questioning
Questioning
Questioning is a major form of human thought and interpersonal communication. The thinker employs a series of questions to explore an issue, an idea or something intriguing...
(LGBTQ
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
) people's social and political equality in education. It seeks to end discrimination
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
, harassment
Harassment
Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour intended to disturb or upset, and it is characteristically repetitive. In the legal sense, it is intentional behaviour which is found threatening or disturbing...
, and bullying based on sexual orientation
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...
, gender identity
Gender identity
A gender identity is the way in which an individual self-identifies with a gender category, for example, as being either a man or a woman, or in some cases being neither, which can be distinct from biological sex. Basic gender identity is usually formed by age three and is extremely difficult to...
and gender expression in all educational institutes with an underlying message that "being different was 'cool'". It is one of the first campaigns of its kind to originate outside the United States, be run by students and intentionally international.
The campaign supports both direct action and a viral
Viral marketing
Viral marketing, viral advertising, or marketing buzz are buzzwords referring to marketing techniques that use pre-existing social networks to produce increases in brand awareness or to achieve other marketing objectives through self-replicating viral processes, analogous to the spread of viruses...
photographic protest, known as “RESPECT” to help "make respecting people in school a cool idea" and ignorance to be “uncool”. The photographs show people in front of a white backdrop
Painted photography backdrops
From roughly 1860 to 1920 painted photography backdrops were a standard feature of early photography studios. Generally of rustic or quasi-classical design, but sometimes presenting a bourgeoise trompe-l'œil, they eventually fell out of fashion with the advent of the Brownie and Kodak cameras...
wearing block rainbow colors with “RESPECT” painted on their face in the colors of the gay pride flag
Rainbow flag (LGBT movement)
The rainbow flag, sometimes pride flag, LGBT pride flag or gay pride flag, is a symbol of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender pride and LGBT social movements in use since the 1970s. The colours reflect the diversity of the LGBT community, and the flag is often used as a symbol of gay pride in...
. The campaign was created on October 29, 2010 by Bedales School
Bedales School
Bedales School is a co-educational independent school situated in Hampshire, in the south east of England. Founded in 1893 by John Haden Badley in reaction to the limitations of conventional Victorian schools, today the school is one of the most expensive in the UK, charging £9,985 per term for a...
student, Claudia White. The RESPECT photographs are featured on the campaigns website, as well as Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
and Flickr
Flickr
Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to...
, the campaign also had over 1000 followers on Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
within a week of its website going live
History
It was inaugurated in response to a rash of widely-publicized bullying-related suicidesBullycide
The term bullycide is a portmanteau word first used in 2001 by Neil Marr and Tim Field in their book Bullycide: Death at Playtime. It refers to suicide attributable to the victim having been bullied, either in person or via social media. Bullycide has also been defined as the killing of the bully...
of juvenile, particularly, LGBTQ youth, school students in the last half of 2010 both homophobic and transphobic, including that of Tyler Clementi
Suicide of Tyler Clementi
Tyler Clementi was an eighteen-year-old student at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, who jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge on September 22, 2010. His roommate Dharun Ravi had video streamed Clementi kissing another man over the Internet without Clementi's knowledge,...
. It was established as a UK and US alternative to other, older LGBT civil rights advocacy organizations, which do not place as much emphasis on education, and focus only on the United States. The campaign hopes to build awareness in the same spirit as the Day of Silence
Day of Silence
The Day of Silence is the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network's annual day of action to protest the bullying and harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students and their supporters...
, It Gets Better Project, No on 8 campaigns and efforts to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell.
The campaign coordinated with Spirit Day
Spirit Day
In early October 2010, Canadian teenager Brittany McMillan promulgated the observance of a new commemoration called Spirit Day, the first observance of which took place on October 20, 2010, in which people wear the color purple to show support for LGBT young people who are victims of bullying...
(October 20) when people are encouraged to wear purple symbolic of spirit from the rainbow flag
Rainbow flag (LGBT movement)
The rainbow flag, sometimes pride flag, LGBT pride flag or gay pride flag, is a symbol of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender pride and LGBT social movements in use since the 1970s. The colours reflect the diversity of the LGBT community, and the flag is often used as a symbol of gay pride in...
.
In 2011 the campaign has worked to add "amendments to the UK’s Educational White Paper
Education and Inspections Act 2006
The Education and Inspections Act 2006 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. According to the government the Act "is intended to represent a major step forward in the Government’s aim of ensuring that all children in all schools get the education they need to enable them to fulfil...
and are writing letters to corporations in the UK that they believe are being homophobic or transphobic." In the summer of 2012 the campaign hopes to get a grant to travel to the United States to several major cities to teach on discrimination based bullying and utilize the RESPECT photographic campaign.
See also
- LGBT rights in the United States
- LGBT rights in the United Kingdom