Shani Heckman has been producing queer events for over a decade in San Francisco, but recently it’s her films that have garnered her the most attention. Her first short, the silent film Another Day, explored gender fluidity; her first documentary, Wrong Bathroom, went from the LGBT festival circuit into academic curriculum at numerous universities and colleges. In addition to garnering a following among queers and gender rebels, Bathroom helped Heckman win the Tee A. Corrine Prize for Lesbian Media Artists — a cash award she’s using to fund her next project, a film about kids in the foster care system.


Were you surprised to win the Tee A. Corrine Prize?
Very surprised. I’m sure there were many qualified applicants and probably even some of my friends who applied, so I feel especially honored. I have dedicated a long time to promoting lesbian, trans and genderqueer arts and artists, so it is nice to also know that this work is appreciated.

What does it mean to win?
Tee A. Corrine was a profound person and artist. I remember being a baby dyke and discovering her Vagina Coloring Book. I was shocked and excited by her work, which to this day, is groundbreaking in its revelry of lesbianism. The award also is timely in lending support to my new project. Filmmaking can be an emotionally laced activity wherein we must find tools for self-motivation to actually make the films, winning grants here and there really helps, because suddenly, someone else believes the project should happen too. Winning grants for your projects also helps in completing them because once you accept financial support you ideally are also accepting the responsibility of completion.

You’re going to use the grant to help produce a documentary on former foster kids. Tell me more.
The project will blend footage with a current foster kid and their daily lives, documenting their achievements in moving from high school to college utilizing the Chafee College Grant Program—the Chafee Grant Program is a state-run program that provides financial assistance specifically to foster youth for college—with footage from adults who were former foster kids, who are successful by society’s standards as adults. Rather than focus on the dismal statistics and experiences of foster youth, this film will focus on the successful former foster youth since the immediate goal of the project is to provide positive role models for youth currently in state care, it will be a “how-to” film made by a former foster kid for current foster youth.

You grew up in foster care then?
I am a former foster kid from bum-hell, Delaware. I actually am really from Pennsylvania, but when my parents died I went to live with my 68-year-old aunt in Delaware. One night, during a fight, I was 13 at the time, I said I didn’t want to live with her and she said she’d sign me over to the state. That was it for me; I never even had the chance to convince her otherwise because the State found me a "professional" foster home in Newark, Delaware within a week. My new home was more than 2 hours from my Aunt, my only living adult relative who did not drive and three hours from the small town where I grew up.

That must have been disheartening.
Foster care proved difficult, not just because I was taken far away from everything I knew, life in the foster home was full of drugs, perversions and abuse. Prior to state care, however, I already had an insane, abusive and physically ill mother, so I was pretty ready to handle most anything by the time I entered foster care. I was grounded three of my four years in state care, which meant no phone, and no outside social activities — this was pre-Internet. My biggest challenges in foster care were the class differences between myself and the foster parents and other youth. I was brought up upper middle class and told that I should aim for Princeton for my college studies. My foster parents worked at the local auto factory and the foster youth all were from single mother homes full of drugs who had lived under the poverty level all their lives, so I had very little in common with anyone in the foster home. Because my goals and ambitions were different from the other foster youth whom I lived with, I did not feel connected with any of them and I went to a different school where no one knew about my foster youth status. Being queer but asexual, was also an obvious problem for me living in a very heterosexual home, but our class differences assured that I was never close enough to anyone in the foster home that they would ever discover my sexual differences.

Have you thought of foster parenting?
I think I would make a great foster parent and when my income levels increase accordingly and my life’s work slows down, I am going to do it! I never planned to ever use my body to create children, but am a huge fan of kids so foster parenting seems perfect.

What made you want to tackle this topic for a film?
I keep meeting other foster kids who are queer and really amazing. I also keep reading horrible stories about foster youth and their lives, almost daily in various newspapers and it makes me want to help tell the other side of the tale as a former foster kid myself. I feel very passionate about making life better for others through film and I believe in serendipity in terms of idea formation for films, so I am using these connections I am making as I go forward with the film’s production. I had it really hard getting through college and life in general with no adult support. Like these other folks I keep meeting I used over-achievement to survive. This film is unique in that it isn’t made for the general public to understand foster youth but rather it is made by and for foster youth as a tool for survival.

Did you see Aging Out last year?
I did not have the chance to see the film but it is on my list to watch, as are a few other foster kid films. It is important as a documentary filmmaker to watch and know other films on the subject such that you aim for a different angle and approach. I might be inclined to ask the producer/director of Aging Out to be an advisor on my film since that’s the sort of thing that lends community to production and ensures we collaborate to further the subject.

How are gay and transgender youth in particular treated in foster care system?
Horrifically. Straight youth are treated like shit, why would those who are “different” have it better? I am still searching for my primary character for the film, the person currently attending high school, and I hope to find one from the LGBT spectrum to discuss this very topic. I was unaware of my sexuality in foster care because I was more focused on survival and dealing with the loss of my parents. I was a closeted foster kid, however; and I can only imagine what it would have bee like to have known I was queer living in state care and dealing with that issue too. I know that NCLR has supported a specific program for LGBT youth in state care and I hope to include someone from their group in the project.

What can queer women do about the situation?
I don’t know that I can say queer women should do something specifically. I gave up on the notion, years ago, that being queer meant you were more enlightened and more apt to be political. I just don’t know that it is true, being queer is just like, enjoying a certain sport in some ways; it doesn’t define you necessarily, it’s just that most world religions and mainstream societies hate you for being queer. In my opinion, our common bond is the disdain of society, but we are not in agreement on that. I do feel like we as a "group" could use more time reading newspapers and volunteering outside our community and less time in bars and watching reality television. But I can say that for society at large, too.

What other advice would you impart?
We have dwindling resources as a world society, and thousands if not millions of beautiful babies that go unwanted daily, to adopt one or foster one of these already existing babies would allow for a better society for all just in the saving of resources. I don’t know what happened to the "anti-breeding” movement — it seems it has died with the "small-car-driving” generation — but that age-old mantra that adoption is better than more overpopulation really is true.
But I can’t really say that sort of thing, to my friends and community even though I am both adopted and a former foster kid, nothing can ever rid people of the instinctual desire to procreate, and apparently, nothing is like childbirth. We can’t deny people the chance to bear children under a democracy. So, I don’t know what to say other than to educate ourselves and try to think outside of yourself, try to think of the world at large, your baby’s future world and do the right thing. Education is our most powerful tool as a community, and as an individual, and it really should be a life-long venture. Education doesn’t have to be paper and pen style it can be putting ourselves in volunteer positions with new communities and ideally just from venturing outside our scenes.

Wrong Bathroom looked at the kind of cultural history of exclusion around bathrooms. I think that a lot of lesbians may think of that as a trans issue but really it’s a gender expression issue, isn’t it?
It is totally a gender expression issue. But obviously trans folk, being a bit more keen to this expression are perhaps victims more often. I think it unfortunate sometimes that the film is often isolated into trans-specific screenings because I actually made the film for, and with, non-trans people in mind. Hence the humor. I felt that the only way to get people who were unaware of this issue interested was through humor and applying the rules of filmmaking that ask that we “show” what happens, and additionally, in documentary filmmaking you must also fill in the "talking heads" with other images. All of these factors led to the production of various types of reenactments of restroom harassment to blend in with the interviews I was collecting.
Moreover, my film also points out that restroom exclusion is not just a queer issue; single parents, too, must find safe spaces to take their young children, especially single parent men. On some level, folks who have transitioned no longer have to deal with gender harassment if they pass, but almost 100 percent of these same people had such experiences prior to transitioning.


I wonder how many people wouldn’t feel forced into a gender box if there were say no gender specific arenas in society, starting with the restroom. Since using the restroom is a basic human need and since the existence of gender-neutral spaces is so rare, if you have even the slightest gender ambiguity aren’t you going to think twice about using the restroom? In fact, some people just prefer not to go out at all and instead stay home, especially those who have to deal with the issue all day long in their day jobs Why are we so transfixed on what people look like in the restroom? For myself, the quest to use the restroom has made me hyper-aware of my own masculinity, if I weren’t forced to go into one of the restroom boxes would I even be so aware of my differences? I often wonder. As an athlete, I would always change in the stalls and would try to hide from others in the locker rooms, as I would rather avoid disdain or harassing words than risk being seen.

How often have you come up against the wrong bathroom scenario?
Daily, in my mind. I am very conscious of my masculine expression. Anytime I leave the queer world I experience stares and silence when I enter the women’s restroom. I am lucky in that I am just enough of both genders that fear isn’t specifically an emotion I have experienced but I do get obvious aggravation, disgust, disdain and distasteful glances consistently. Sometimes in very lesbian spaces I am given the twice over as it seems that those who might go by genderqueer or butch are choosing more often to use the men’s restrooms. I personally have no interest in using the men’s room unless there is a line at the women’s restroom. I prefer to induce the stares actually, because I am still a women and when I am denied roles in my daily life due to being a woman and at the same time don’t receive the “perks” of femininity, I feel I have even more of a right to be in the restroom and seen for what I am without harassment. As such, I feel like I need to wait in the women’s line and let them know masculine women exist and some still use the women’s restroom.

Why does it strike so much fear or anger in non-queer/non-trans/gender-conforming folks?
You know it’s pretty random how it goes. Men don’t seem to have this issue as often, which might be why lots of genderqueer and butch folk choose to use the men’s restroom, because in men’s restrooms you only look at each other if you are cruising, so most don’t even glance at you. Women, however, tend to be more hyper-conscious of body image and fashion. In my research, over and over again folks who use both restrooms spoke to the fact that women always look to see who came in the restroom and what they were wearing. Also confirmed in my research was the generational and class induced hyperawareness surrounding gender expression in the women’s restrooms, in that older, wealthier women tended to react with more fear and stronger reactions than younger, more working class, folk.


Have you ever heard a description of your work that really surprised you?
Not yet. Most use my descriptions to describe the work; I think it just the nature of the industry to quote directly from the press kit for films.

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