LibGuides: LGBTQ+: Media

Featured Streaming Media

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Becoming Me: The Gender Within (40:10) What ultimately determines a person’s gender? Is it chromosomes, hormones, genitals, or an innate sense of self? In this Telly Award–winning program, five transgendered individuals between the ages of 20 and 50 speak openly about what it has meant to them to be transgendered—their first experiences of gender confusion, life after coming out, family responses, and more. Advice for others who may be questioning their own gender is provided, and the process of sexual reassignment surgery is addressed. Contains clinically explicit language.
Conceiving Family: Stories of Gay and Lesbian Adoption (50:18) DESCRIPTION Following filmmaker Amy Bohigian and her partner as they adopt 15-month-old twins, this program highlights the legal, social, and personal difficulties that accompany the rewards of parenthood when gays and lesbians start families through adoption. Required to live with the twins’ foster parents for two weeks to help the children transition, Bohigian and the other adults are forced to work out their different attitudes towards same-sex parenting, with surprising results. Also profiled: long-term partners fighting to both be legitimized as legal parents, a birth family with second thoughts about giving their child to a same-sex couple, lesbian foster parents grappling with the return of a baby to her native community, and two men daunted by the cost of surrogacy. Produced in Canada.
Global Gay (50:28) Whether it be regarding legalization in the Middle East and Africa or the focus of gay marriage laws in the West, after years of long diplomatic struggle, several world leaders have declared themselves in favor of the universal decriminalization of homosexuality. But victory won’t come easily. The countries that still punish homosexuality refuse to give in to international pressure. This film follows this battle for decriminalization through the lives and work of some of its fearless pioneers in Russia, Cuba, Cameroon, Nepal, and South Africa. Homosexuality is forbidden in almost half of the world and a global revolution is underway to obtain what UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and President Barack Obama call “the final frontier in human rights”—the universal decriminalization of homosexuality.
Growing Up Trans (1:25:37) Go on an intimate and eye-opening journey inside a new frontier. Told from the perspective of parents, doctors, and, most revealing of all, eight transgender kids themselves, ranging in ages from 9 to 19, FRONTLINE takes a powerful look at this new generation, exploring the medical possibilities, struggles, and choices transgender kids and their families face today. Distributed by PBS Distribution
HBO Suited (1:17:47) From producers Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner (HBO’s Girls), Suited tells the story of Bindle & Keep, a Brooklyn tailoring company that looks beyond the gender binary, creating custom-made suits for gender non-conforming and transgender clients. Clothier duo Rae Tutera and Daniel Friedman take a holistic approach to their work, considering each client’s personal narrative, which becomes inextricable from the creation of the perfect suit. Among those who share their unique stories are a transgender man preparing for his wedding, a New York City cab driver looking to feel comfortable for a big birthday, a young law student struggling through job interviews, and a 12-year-old trans boy whose bravery is only rivaled by his nervousness about looking good for his upcoming Bar Mitzvah. A modern, evolved look at gender through the conduit of clothing, this illuminating documentary elucidates the private and emotional experience that those who struggle with gender identity go through when it comes to fashion. With heart and optimism, Suited spotlights the intimate journey of coming into a new identity, accepting difference, and living bravely in one's own skin, underscoring the important message that one size truly doesn’t fit all. An HBO Production.
The Play Within: An LGBTQ Documentary (51:50) This film presents the premiere of the stage adaption of the award winning film, The Play Within, an emotional and issue-focused fictional drama based on the lives of two real people—Matthew Shepard and Tyler Clementi—and their tragic, untimely deaths. After the play, an audience talkback allows for an exploration of this experience. This is followed by a wide-ranging discussion by psychiatrists, social service providers, clergy, and others who illuminate the history, evolution, and current circumstances that face the LGBTQ community.
The Strange History of Don't Ask Don't Tell (1:19:30) DESCRIPTION Suspenseful, deeply engaging and heart-wrenching, The Strange History of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell illustrates the tumultuous evolution of a controversial policy which fostered hate and intolerance within the military – and undermined the very freedoms American soldiers fight for – by forcing gay and lesbian soldiers to lie and live in secrecy. In 1993, President Bill Clinton, trying to deliver on his election promise of lifting the ban on gays in the military, encountered vehement opposition that resulted in the compromise legislation, known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” This 80-minute documentary examines the torturous consequences of the policy and the fight to repeal it – a battle that would last 17 years, span three presidencies, and result in the discharge of 13,368 active service members. Shot during the final 15 months of the law prior to its repeal, the film includes archival news footage and interviews with over 70 key players, from policy experts to Pentagon personnel, as well as personal accounts by a number of actively serving gay soldiers (who are obscured from the camera’s view, as speaking about their sexual orientation would be in violation of Don't Ask, Don’t Tell). An HBO Production.
When I Knew (35:15) Inspired by the book of the same name, When I Knew—codirected by filmmakers Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato—asks one simple question: when did you know that you’re gay? The film opens with Bailey and Barbato describing their own “aha!” moments and then brings together 16 interviewees for an intimate group discussion. Though some of the stories are told with a sense of loss, most are proud affirmations of sexual identity, supporting the conviction that recognizing and embracing one’s sexual orientation is essential to being true to oneself. Illuminating and moving. An HBO Production.

More Media

In addition to streaming media, we have DVDs, images, audio and more media.

Milk The story of Harvey Milk, and his struggles as an American gay activist who fought for gay rights and became California's first openly gay elected official.
We Were Here A deep and reflective look at the arrival and impact of AIDS in San Francisco and how individuals rose to the occasion during the first years of this unimaginable crisis.