LGBTQ+: Media

A documentary examining the life of Bayard Rustin who, although one of the first "freedom riders," an adviser to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and A. Philip Randolph, and an organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, was forced to play a background role in landmark civil rights events because he was homosexual.

"Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender older people who fought the first battles for equality now face so much fear of discrimination, bullying and abuse in the care setting that many are hiding their lives to survive. Thousands are dying earlier than their straight counterparts because they are isolated and afraid to ask for help. But a growing number of people are fighting to keep their elders from being silenced."

"...archival footage that puts the audience on the ground with the activists and the remarkably insightful interviews from the ACT UP Oral History Project to explore ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) from a grassroots perspective--how a small group of men and women of all races and classes, came together to change the world and save each other's lives..."

David Weissman's We Were Here revisits the San Francisco of the 80s and 90s, using the city's experience with AIDS to open up a conversation about both the history of the epidemic and the lessons to be learned from it. Yet the film reaches far beyond San Francisco and beyond AIDS itself as it illuminates the power of a community that comes together with love, compassion, and determination.

"In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969 police raided the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay bar in the Greenwich Village section of New York City. Such raids were not unusual in the late 1960s, an era when homosexual sex was illegal in every state but Illinois. That night, however, the street erupted into violent protests and street demonstrations that lasted for the next six days. The Stonewall riots, as they came to be known, marked a major turning point in the modern gay civil rights movement in the United States and around the world. This is part 1 of an interview with Yvonne "Butch" Ritter who is transgender and discusses the raid at Stonewall."

A woman must come to terms with the death of her 17-year-old son and her past when she seeks out her son's father.

Set in 1985. Revolves around two very different men with AIDS, one fictional, one fictionalized. Roy Cohn, personifies all the hypocrisy, delusion and callousness of the official response to the plague. Nothing shakes Roy's lack of empathy: even on his death bed, he's fighting with his gay nurse and taunting the woman he helped put to death, Ethel Rosenberg. The other patient is Prior Walter, who is visited by an angel and deserted by his self-pitying lover, Louis. Louis moves on to a relationship with Joe Pitt, a Mormon lawyer whose closeted homosexuality drives his wife to delusions and brings his mother to New York.

The colorful, electrifying romance that took the Cannes Film Festival by storm courageously dives into a young woman's experiences of first love and sexual awakening. Blue is the Warmest Color stars the remarkable newcomer Adèle Exarchopoulos as a high schooler who, much to her own surprise, plunges into a thrilling relationship with a female twentysomething art student, played by Léa Seydoux. Directed by Adbellatif Kechiche, this finely detailed, intimate epic sensitively renders the erotic abandon of youth. It has captivated international audiences and been widely embraced as a defining love story for the new century.

A transgender youth starts living as a man, and assumes the name Brandon Teena. He moves to a tiny Nebraska town and begins making new friends under his new identity. All goes well until his new friends discover his secret. Based on a true story about hope, fear, and the courage it takes to be yourself.

It's 1963, a time in the United States when life was simple, straightforward and the lines between the sexes and sex roles were crisply drawn and severely delineated. Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist find themselves thrown together when they are hired to tend sheep in the remote area of Brokeback Mountain, Wyoming. Because of the job, the two are forced to spend many hours together alone in the wild. Ennis and Jack are inexorably drawn to each other through their proximity, loneliness and through a shared lack of tenderness and emotion in their lives and are emotionally, physically and psychically bonded to each other almost from the start.

The sudden and powerful attraction between a teenage boy and a summer guest at his parents' house on the Italian Riviera has a profound and lasting influence that will mark them both for a lifetime.

Two women from very different backgrounds find themselves in an unexpected love affair in 1950s New York. As conventional norms of the time challenge their undeniable attraction, an honest story emerges to reveal the resilience of the heart in the face of change. A young woman in her twenties, Therese is a clerk working in a Manhattan department store and dreaming of a more fulfilling life when she meets Carol, an alluring woman trapped in a loveless, convenient marriage.

His life changed history, his courage changed lives. Harvey Milk is a middle-aged New Yorker who, after moving to San Francisco, becomes a Gay Rights activist and city politician. On his third attempt, he is elected to San Francisco's Board of Supervisors in 1977, the first openly-gay man to be elected to public office in the United States. The following year, both he and the city's mayor, George Moscone, are shot to death by former city supervisor, Dan White, who blames his former colleagues for denying White's attempt to rescind his resignation from the board. Based on the true story of Harvey Milk.

A young black man struggles to find his place in the world while growing up in a rough neighborhood of Miami.

A beautiful woman riding in a limosine along Los Angeles' Mulholland Drive is targeted by a would-be shooter, but before he can pull the trigger, she is injured when her limo is hit by another car. The woman stumbles away from the accident and meets up with a plucky ingenue new to L.A. But are things really as they seem?

The "unblinking behind-the-scenes story of the fashion-obsessed New Yorkers who created 'voguing' and drag balls, and turned these raucous celebrations into a powerful expression of fierce personal pride."

"After the death of his longtime partner, a British college professor in Los Angeles struggles to find meaning in his life. As he dwells in the past, he begins to contemplate suicide. A series of events and encounters will lead him to question if there really is a meaning to his life after all."

Laure is 10 years old and a tomboy. On arrival in a new neighborhood, she lets Lisa and her crowd believe that she is a boy. Summer becomes a big playground and Laure pretends to be "Mikael", a boy like the others, different enough to get the attention of Lisa, who falls in love with him. Laure takes advantage of her new identity as if the end of the summer would never reveal her unsettling secret.

Cheryl, a young black woman in a video store, is making a documentary about an obscure black actress from the 1930's. When she discovers that the actress (known as "the Watermelon Woman") had a white lesbian lover, Cheryl just happens to fall in love with a very cute white woman herself!

"The GLAAD Media Awards recognize and honor media for their fair, accurate and inclusive representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community and the issues that affect their lives."

By 1973, Harvey Milk had already been many things: naval officer, high school teacher, bit-part actor and wandering hippie. Starting fresh in San Francisco, his belief in a more personal approach to local government led him to run for office in the heart of American gay culture, the Castro. Lillian Faderman details the tenacity and courage of California's first openly gay public official.

Gender should be the least remarkable thing about someone, but transgender people are still too often misunderstood. To help those who are scared to ask questions or nervous about saying the wrong thing, Jackson Bird shares a few ways to think about trans issues. And in this funny, frank talk, he clears up a few misconceptions about pronouns, transitioning, bathrooms and more.

"As a member of both the African American and LGBT communities, filmmaker Yoruba Richen is fascinated with the overlaps and tensions between the gay rights and the civil rights movements. She explores how the two struggles intertwine and propel each other forward and, in an unmissable argument, she dispels a myth about their points of conflict. A powerful reminder that we all have a stake in equality."--TED website.