 So, when the strategy, the medium, and the message are joined with creativity, they can defeat the Pence amendment that would have defunded Planned Parenthood. So I want you to welcome to the stage the Executive Vice President of Planned Parenthood, Donald Gans, and activist and rights advocate, Lindsay Taylor Wood. Thank you for having us. We're really excited and nervous to be here. So, I was thinking on the way to the conference this morning that I can think of no other non-profit that has the type of global recognition, brand recognition, and equity that Planned Parenthood has. And Don and I were chatting about that backstage, and you said to me after 101 years, so they just had their 101st anniversary. But you said to me, you know, we aren't just championing birth control, we're championing a big idea. And I think it's a great place to kick off because we think about, so many people think about Planned Parenthood only in terms of birth control. And your services are so much more comprehensive than that. So I think a great place to start is, what does Planned Parenthood do? Yeah, thank you, Lindsay. Thank you all for having me. Yes, we were started in Brooklyn, actually, 101 years ago from Tuesday. So we really are in the birthday week. I'll let you sing later. But yeah, I always say, you know, people know either if you love us or hate us, and luckily more people love us. But people say, they think of us for our services or advocacy. And what I always like to talk about, Lindsay, is that Planned Parenthood was actually centered on a big idea. We didn't invent it, but we have championed it this whole time. And that is, your body and your pleasure are your own. Your body and your pleasure are your own. And if they aren't, you are not going to be free or equal. And we're still fighting that today, unfortunately. Well, and that's a great segue into the next question, because again, you've been doing this for over 100 years, and we are still fighting for basic reproductive rights, which is astonishing and terrifying given what we have ahead of us with this administration. So can you speak to why it is that you think we're still fighting for these fundamental basic rights? I do think it ties exactly back to that, which is that there are still people who don't want women to be free or equal, and they don't want a lot of other people in this country to be free or equal either. And so it really is at that fundamental level, a different world view. And I can tell you a couple of things that are going on right now that are really terrifying. One, I think we've all heard the rollback and attacks on the birth control benefit that 62 million women in this country are counting on in order to have access to no or low cost contraceptives, contraceptives without a copay, that really power their education, their economic future, their future family if they choose to have one, and communities and engagement across this country. The other thing that's super terrifying and really is a case of, I don't know if it's art versus life or life imitating art, but in Brownsville, Texas today, as we sit here, there is a 17-year-old undocumented young woman who is basically being held hostage by our government and refused an abortion that the courts have said she is entitled to have. They took her to a crisis pregnancy center, forced her to have an ultrasound she didn't want, and are literally a guy in an office in Washington, D.C., where I'm so happy to be away from, is dictating that he is not going to follow the court order and is basically trying to force her to have this baby. And so if that's not the handmade tale, I don't know what is. So, given that horrifying and very real example of the challenges that we're facing, we definitely want to spend part of today, or most of this conversation, talking about solutions and solutions that are specific to this audience. And given that the theme of this conference is really around how we can partner with artists to create the world that we want to create, I would love to know how is Planned Parenthood thinking about partnering with artists and the role that art can play in reducing stigma? What are the ways that you're thinking about that? Well, we don't believe you can have a movement that doesn't have art, really, and artists at its center. I know we all heard Pala talking about that as well. And so we have partnered across a range of disciplines and artists working either professionally in terms of, we'll look at some clips here working in the entertainment industry, but also people who are powering all kinds of things from spoken word art to graffiti art to music. And so a lot of ways that we believe that we can challenge stigma in the culture. And we really will not win this battle until we deal with the stigma that is at the heart of it around women's sexuality. And I know we have a couple examples, but one of those examples is a VR piece that you guys did called Across the Line. And that, if you haven't seen it, is something definitely worth checking out. And we unfortunately couldn't have the VR sets for everyone here today. So we wanted to show a short video about what exactly that looked like and how Planned Parenthood created that piece. But can you talk more about how it came about and what you were hoping to accomplish by making it? Maybe what we can do is go to the video and see a few clips from some of the serialized TV shows. And just an interesting fact for our audience, those of you who do work in writing and storytelling, which is really the heart of what we think changes minds and builds empathy, is that studies are showing that nothing changes the culture more than serialized television. So if you work in that, you're very, very, very powerful. We write very good materials about sex ed. We do not write very good television. So we don't try and do that. But we do work to provide a lot of the things that creatives need if they want to include storylines or Planned Parenthood in their work. Yeah. And just to speak to that really quickly before we transition to Across the Line, if you don't have a chance to connect with her on how you can do that, definitely Karen Sprock, the incredible Karen Sprock is in the audience. So in the spirit of, again, being solutions oriented, snag her if you want to understand better how you can partner with Planned Parenthood to accomplish things like this. And then... And three things we have before we can show Across the Line, which I know you're eager to get to because that's how we connected, just wanted to say we don't only work in television, a couple of really great partnerships that we've had. This is... We worked with spoken art, spoken word artists. We worked with musicians. We worked with graffiti and other artists to launch our new I Defy program, which is aimed at engaging teenagers in the movement. And we've almost reached 200,000 15 to 19 year olds who have signed up to be part of the movement for reproductive rights and justice in just a year because of art and what they have brought. We also... Anybody here went to or saw Refinery 29's 29 Rooms, which was a really great installation piece. We had a Planned Parenthood room in the 29 rooms, which was the neon room for any of you who went. And again, thousands and thousands of people who attended that event. And then finally, just another example here. Fashion stands with Planned Parenthood and people who are in the fashion industry, not just at fashion shows standing up, but creating pieces of clothing and engaging with us in ways that let more and more people show what they believe and how they want to be part of something in the world. Also, just this morning, on any streaming platform you can go to, we released the digital box edition of Seven Inches for Planned Parenthood and Know Your Little Dirty Minds. It's actually going to ultimately be released as seven seven inch vinyl records that were produced and pulled together by the National on about 20 other amazing artists. And that's available today. Exclusive announcement here at the Brooklyn Museum conference. Okay, great. So we've talked about serialized television. We've talked about installation. We've talked about fashion. And now, again, moving towards virtual reality. Tell us about Across the Line. How did it come to be? And then we can take a peek at the video. Across the Line is a seven minute virtual reality film that we made with the godmother of virtual reality, Noni Delapeña and a number of other talented VR artists a couple of years ago. It debuted at Sundance. We were super excited about that. What it does is it gives people the chance to experience what it is actually like to be the person walking through a crowd of protesters going into a health center that provides abortion. And I had been lucky enough to see Noni's piece on Syria where you got to actually walk through and experience a refugee camp. And I walked out the other end and said, okay, we have to do this because there's an important story to tell that we can't figure out how to make people understand this isn't nones nicely praying outside. This is bullies really going after people in a way that even anyone who professed to be Christian could not defend if they saw it. And that was in fact what we saw with some lawmakers. We've taken it to many state capitals. We've taken it to many festivals. We've taken it to college campuses. And we had a state legislator who was very opposed to abortion. But we invited all the legislators to come and he showed up to his credit. I really appreciated that. And he went through and he came out and he was furious. And our volunteer was a little bit freaked out because she thought, oh my god, is this guy furious at me and what's he going to do? And he took off the headset and he said nobody who does that could call themselves Christian. And what was so powerful about that, I don't think we changed his vote, but I do think we opened his heart in a way that would mean he wouldn't be a supportive when somebody next said, hey, that's our plan for next Tuesday that he might actually say, I don't think that's a really good plan. So that's what we're hoping for. The incredible activist should be a Wilson who many of you know actually tweeted something yesterday, which I feel like is very much in alignment with this. She said haters are actually the just the people that don't get it yet. And I feel like that's how you start moving people forward, right? It's it's pulling those empathy levers and then bringing them along a journey. So you may not have his vote yet. But I have a feeling it's coming. We're working. Well, should we take a look at this so people can really get a feel for what we put together? Jezebel feminist, you're worthless. You're a piece of trash. Maybe your parents should have aborted you. How do we get people to understand and become a witness and beyond scene and experience what these young women have to experience? Shame on you. God's going to destroy you in the lake of fire and you won't be smiling. I don't know that people really understand what it feels like to have people telling you what to do with your body. We see virtual reality is an amazing opportunity to actually put someone in someone else's shoes. Oh my gosh. And to show what people go through when they try to access health care at some health centers in this country. We really felt there would be something very interesting with combining the 360 spherical video with the CG created volumetric virtual reality so that individuals could feel like they're on scene, you know, as witnessing somebody else's experience where we should go for the clinic. You're here to pray for the abortion clinic. You're here to go to the abortion and then be there themselves. You're a wicked woman. You know that? You're a wicked woman. What do you think you're doing here? What do you think you're doing here? This was really challenging because we set out to do something that was documentary style but adapting it to this new medium. Then we had to do a motion capture session where we motion captured both body and facial recreation. Hickid, Jezebel, Feminist. You shouldn't have been a whore. We went through this whole workshop process where a woman whose background is in trauma-informed theater would work with the women to surface the emotion of those stories. And Christina, she's a woman who has gone through an abortion herself. We tried to lift that story up and bring it as close to possible to consciousness, then go shoot the documentary scene. That immersive experience will allow people to see what it's actually like for these women. I don't think you can divorce violent things that happen from the violent, hateful rhetoric that is its fuel. Once they see it, once they experience it, they are going to say, this is wrong. Women, men, young people, they should not face this abuse and harassment outside of health centers. And I think this is a game changer. Talking about earlier, what has the reaction to this been? I'm pleased to say it. We do like to win awards, although that's not why we make things. So it's won a few awards and gotten some recognition, which has helped us get it out in more places. But most importantly, what we have done is start some studies. And the great thing is the preliminary research is showing it actually has an impact if you do a before and after test on what people's views are and whether they think this is acceptable behavior, and whether they think there should be protections that people have from this kind of abuse. And it's been very interesting to me. Women come out and I will say it's either very triggering because they say this is the kind of abuse in some place in my life that I have actually experienced, or they come out and they go, yeah, no surprise. Men have been a surprise audience for me because one of the guys who is six foot two, been an escort outside of a health center in Minneapolis, St. Paul area for years, he went through it. And I thought, Oh, my God, he's going to just be so like, Yeah, I see this every day. He came out again, took off the headset tears are running down his face. Wow, kind of surprised. He said, I had become so kind of protected myself that I had forgotten what that that the woman I'm escorting can't basically tune it out. And by just stepping those two feet to his right, and actually having that yelling happen at him, which I just don't think men have very much. It's very hard to like fake yell at somebody, right? Yeah, these are people really going at people. And when you walk through the thing, you can't tell it as much here. It actually triggers the people to yell at you and move toward you. So as you move along the line of people, they're really coming into your space. I also have a, I guess I just be careful because it's but is Brooklyn, you know, I have this photo of a guy with the headset on and he's basically flipping the bird at somebody in the headset, right? That he's seeing in the headset. It's a great shot. So so anyway, a very powerful tool. We're trying to do a lot of other things with virtual reality. Now, one of the things that we're looking at is how could we use the kind of good part of virtual reality being private to actually make it a teaching tool around sexual education, consent, you know, a lot of young people, they don't have a space where you can practice and fail. Failing is really bad. Well, that's such a great segue to because unfortunately, we have a minute left. But one of the things that I was I was reading a transcript of a speech that you gave recently and as a person who's incredibly interested in using innovation and technologies to work for women, it was unexpected and such a pleasant surprise to find how forward thinking Planned Parenthood what is when it comes to frontier technologies. So in addition to the arts, you guys have put out a birth control or a tracking app where you can track your period and your birth control. You are rolling out a video online secure video conference appointments with phones that allows people to engage with you about birth control, sexually transmitted infections. And then again, you're thinking about virtual health clinics VR for sex ed. So what does the future for Planned Parenthood look like as it relates to these new frontier technologies in art? Well, given everything that is coming at us, I feel like we're like the bear went over the mountain. You have to go under it, over it, around it, whatever in order to be able to get people the care they need and to give them where we started ownership, power over their bodies and their pleasure. And if people have that, they can go on to do anything they want in the world. And I would just say to our audience, which I know is full of some of the most talented creators out there, everything we do is better when it involves artists and storytellers and dreamers and experienced designers and people who can convey our values very deeply, right? Somebody who is not an artist, we could have made a virtual reality film, but by making it with Nani and Brad and those guys who are true artists, it really touches and changes people's lives. So again, we're just so appreciative for the relationship we have with the arts community writ large. There's a way for every single person to get involved with us. And again, I call out Karen Spark, my colleague who's in the audience here. We would love to hear from you and we appreciate everything that you do. So thank you. Well, we appreciate what you do, Dawn, and all of Planned Parenthood. So thank you for having us. That's all the time we have. That, let's give it up for Dawn and Planned again. I mean, I think it's just finding the way up over under through. It should not be difficult to give women and families their rights to their bodies and health care.