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THE STONEWALL UPRISING OF 1969

The Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street is a gay bar in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Lower Manhattan, New York City. At the time, homosexuality was considered a crime in New York and in other parts of the United States. The Stonewall Inn, like many gay establishments at the time, was owned by a Mafia family and did not have a liquor license, thus making it the target of frequent police raids.In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, the Stonewall Inn was the target of a police raid. Police barred the windows and doors to ensure that the 205 people in the bar that night could not escape.Standard procedure was to line up the patrons, check their identification, and have female police officers take those dressed as women to the bathroom to verify their sex, upon which anyone appearing to be physically male and dressed as a woman would be arrested.While locked inside, patrons and employees were interrogated. Those who had identification were slowly released into the gathering crowd outside, while others were kept inside the bar in preparation for their arrest. Within minutes, between 100 and 150 people had congregated outside, some after they were released from inside Stonewall and some after noticing the police cars and the crowd. The employees and those they referred to as “cross-dressers” (those who were perceived as presenting in a gender nonconforming manner) were the most visible law-breakers, and therefore the most vulnerable to arrest. It was ordered that all “cross-dressers” be detained, and while a few were able to escape in the commotion, several were arrested.Those dressed as women that night refused to go with the officers, and men in line began to refuse to produce their identification.Stormé DeLarverie, one of the bar's patrons, was arrested and escorted outside. Not only was she hit over the head with a baton by the police when she stated that her handcuffs were too tight, but she was also picked up and thrown into the back of a police wagon after several attempts to escape arrest. Following this, she asked the large crowd outside, "Why don't you guys do something?", after which violence broke out.According to some accounts, police tried to restrain some of the crowd, knocking some people down; some attempted to overturn police wagons; the wheels of police cars and wagons were slashed. Other accounts detail how beer cans were thrown and the police lashed out, dispersing some of the crowd with stacks of bricks. The police, outnumbered by approximately 500 people, barricaded themselves and several other detainees inside the Stonewall Inn to try to protect themselves. Most of the crowd dispersed by sunrise, but thousands later returned to the Stonewall Inn that evening to protest the events that had occurred early that morning. The protests went on for a total of 6 days.In the end, the events of the Stonewall Uprising became an important milestone in the fight for equal rights regardless of sexual orientation, gender expression, and identity. The first "Pride March" was held on June 28, 1970, one year after the events of the Stonewall Uprising. It was called the Christopher Street Liberation Day in order to commemorate the events that took place that week. The first Christopher Street Liberation Day was a resounding success, with thousands of attendees surpassing organizers expectations. New York, Los Angeles and Chicago quickly began planning for 1971, and soon other cities, states, and countries would begin to establish their own annual Pride traditions.
Sources: Library of Congress; Wikipedia

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ORGANIZATIONS TO DONATE TO

Center for Black Equity
The mission of the Center for Black Equity is to promote a multinational LGBTQ+ network dedicated to improving health and wellness opportunities, economic empowerment, and equal rights while promoting individual and collective work, responsibility, and self-determination. Their vision is to build a global network of LGBTQ+ individuals, allies, community-based organizations and Prides dedicated to achieving equality and social justice for Black LGBTQ+ communities through Economic Equity, Health Equity, and Social Equity.Drag Queen Story Hour
Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH) is just what it sounds like—drag queens reading stories to children in libraries, schools, and bookstores. DQSH captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models. In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish, where dress up is real.Family Equality Council
Family Equality is a national American nonprofit organization whose mission is to advance legal and lived equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) families, and for those who wish to form them, through building community, changing hearts and minds, and driving policy change.GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality
GLMA is a national organization committed to ensuring health equity for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) and all sexual and gender minority (SGM) individuals, and equality for LGBTQ/SGM health professionals in their work and learning environments. To achieve this mission, GLMA utilizes the scientific expertise of its diverse multidisciplinary membership to inform and drive advocacy, education, and research.Human Rights Campaign
The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) is the largest LGBTQ advocacy group and LGBTQ political lobbying organization in the United States. The organization focuses on protecting and expanding rights for LGBTQ individuals, most notably advocating for same-sex marriage, anti-discrimination and hate crimes legislation, and HIV/AIDS advocacy. The organization has a number of legislative initiatives as well as supporting resources for LGBTQ individuals.Lambda Legal
Founded in 1973, Lambda Legal is the oldest and largest national non-profit legal organization whose mission is to achieve full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and everyone living with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work.National Black Justice Fund
The National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC) is America’s leading national civil rights organization dedicated to the empowerment of Black lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer+, and same gender loving (LGBTQ+/SGL) people, including people living with HIV/AIDS through coalition building, federal policy change, research, and education. Their mission is to end racism, homophobia, and LGBTQ+/SGL bias and stigma. NBJC supports Black individuals, families, and communities in strengthening the bonds and bridging the gaps between the movements for racial justice and LGBTQ+/SGL equity.OutRight Action International
OutRight Action International (OutRight) is a LGBTIQ human rights non-governmental organization that addresses human rights violations and abuses against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people. The organization documents human rights discrimination and abuses based on their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics in partnership with activists, advocates, media, NGOs and allies on a local, regional, national, and international level.Transgender Law Center
Transgender Law Center (TLC) is the largest national trans-led organization advocating for a world in which all people are free to define themselves and their futures. Grounded in legal expertise and committed to racial justice, TLC employs a variety of community-driven strategies to keep transgender and gender nonconforming people alive, thriving, and fighting for liberation.The Trevor Project
The Trevor Project is an American nonprofit organization founded in 1998 focused on suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth. Through a toll-free telephone number, it operates The Trevor Lifeline, a confidential service that offers trained counselors.

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BOOKS

All My Mother's Lovers by Ilana Masad - Intimacy has always eluded twenty-seven-year-old Maggie Krause—despite being brought up by married parents, models of domestic bliss—until, that is, Lucia came into her life. But when Maggie’s mom, Iris, dies in a car crash, Maggie returns home only to discover a withdrawn dad, an angry brother, and, along with Iris's will, five sealed envelopes, each addressed to a mysterious man she’s never heard of. In an effort to run from her own grief and discover the truth about Iris—who made no secret of her discomfort with her daughter's sexuality—Maggie embarks on a road trip, determined to hand-deliver the letters and find out what these men meant to her mother. Maggie quickly discovers Iris’s second, hidden life, which shatters everything Maggie thought she knew about her parents’ perfect relationship. What is she supposed to tell her father and brother? And how can she deal with her own relationship when her whole world is in freefall?Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz - Set in El Paso, Texas in 1987, the novel follows two Mexican-American teenagers, Aristotle "Ari" Mendoza and Dante Quintana, their friendship, and their struggles with racial and ethnic identity, sexuality, and family relationships. Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship--the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime. And it is through this friendship that Ari and Dante will learn the most important truths about themselves and the kind of people they want to be.Boy Erased by Garrard Conley - The son of a Baptist pastor and deeply embedded in church life in small town Arkansas, as a young man Garrard Conley was terrified and conflicted about his sexuality. When Garrard was a nineteen-year-old college student, he was outed to his parents, and was forced to make a life-changing decision: either agree to attend a church-supported conversion therapy program that promised to "cure" him of homosexuality; or risk losing family, friends, and the God he had prayed to every day of his life. Through an institutionalized Twelve-Step Program heavy on Bible study, he was supposed to emerge heterosexual, ex-gay, cleansed of impure urges and stronger in his faith in God for his brush with sin. Instead, even when faced with a harrowing and brutal journey, Garrard found the strength and understanding to break out in search of his true self and forgiveness.City of Night by John Rechy - A young man travels across the country while working as a hustler. The book focuses on locations that the youth visits and certain personages he meets there, from New York City, to Los Angeles, San Francisco and New Orleans. Throughout the novel, the unnamed narrator has trysts with various peculiar characters, including another hustler, an older man, an S&M enthusiast and a bed-ridden old man. All of these relationships range in the extent of their emotional and sexual nature, as well as in their peculiarity.Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan - Ava moved to Hong Kong to find happiness, but so far, it isn’t working out. Since she left Dublin, she’s been spending her days teaching English to rich children—she’s been assigned the grammar classes because she lacks warmth—and her nights avoiding petulant roommates in her cramped apartment.
When Ava befriends Julian, a witty British banker, he offers a shortcut into a lavish life her meager salary could never allow. Ignoring her feminist leanings and her better instincts, Ava finds herself moving into Julian’s apartment, letting him buy her clothes, and, eventually, striking up a sexual relationship with him. When Julian’s job takes him back to London, she stays put, unsure where their relationship stands.
Enter Edith. A Hong Kong–born lawyer, striking and ambitious, Edith takes Ava to the theater and leaves her tulips in the hallway. Ava wants to be her—and wants her. Ava has been carefully pretending that Julian is nothing more than an absentee roommate, so when Julian announces that he’s returning to Hong Kong, she faces a fork in the road. Should she return to the easy compatibility of her life with Julian or take a leap into the unknown with Edith?Fairest by Meredith Talusan - A memoir about a precocious boy with albinism, a sun child from a rural Philippine village, who would grow up to become a woman in America. Coping with the strain of parental neglect and the elusive promise of U.S. citizenship, Talusan found childhood comfort from her devoted grandmother, a grounding force as she was treated by others with special preference or public curiosity. As an immigrant to the United States, Talusan came to be perceived as white. An academic scholarship to Harvard provided access to elite circles of privilege but required Talusan to navigate through the complex spheres of race, class, sexuality, and her place within the gay community. She emerged as an artist and an activist questioning the boundaries of gender. Talusan realized she did not want to be confined to a prescribed role as a man, and transitioned to become a woman, despite the risk of losing a man she deeply loved.Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin - The novel focuses on the events in the life of an American man living in Paris and his feelings and frustrations with his relationships with other men in his life, particularly an Italian bartender named Giovanni whom he meets at a Parisian gay bar. The novel is noteworthy for bringing complex representations of homosexuality and bisexuality to a reading public with empathy and artistry, thereby fostering a broader public discourse of issues regarding same-sex desire.¡Hola Papi!: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons by John Paul Brammer - JP shares his story of growing up biracial and in the closet in America’s heartland, while attempting to answer some of life’s toughest questions: How do I let go of the past? How do I become the person I want to be? Is there such a thing as being too gay? Should I hook up with my grade school bully now that he’s out of the closet? Questions we’ve all asked ourselves, surely.Maurice by E.M. Forster - Maurice is heartbroken over unrequited love, which opened his heart and mind to his own sexual identity. In order to be true to himself, he goes against the grain of society’s often unspoken rules of class, wealth, and politics.Memorial by Bryan Washington - Benson and Mike are two young guys who live together in Houston. Mike is a Japanese American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson's a Black day care teacher, and they've been together for a few years -- good years -- but now they're not sure why they're still a couple. There's the sex, sure, and the meals Mike cooks for Benson, and, well, they love each other.
But when Mike finds out his estranged father is dying in Osaka just as his acerbic Japanese mother, Mitsuko, arrives in Texas for a visit, Mike picks up and flies across the world to say goodbye. In Japan he undergoes an extraordinary transformation, discovering the truth about his family and his past. Back home, Mitsuko and Benson are stuck living together as unconventional roommates, an absurd domestic situation that ends up meaning more to each of them than they ever could have predicted. Without Mike's immediate pull, Benson begins to push outwards, realizing he might just know what he wants out of life and have the goods to get it.Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf - "The longest and most charming love letter in literature" playfully constructs the figure of Orlando as the fictional embodiment of Woolf's close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West. Spanning three centuries, the novel opens as Orlando, a young nobleman in Elizabeth's England, awaits a visit from the Queen and traces his experience with first love as England under James I lies locked in the embrace of the Great Frost. At the midpoint of the novel, Orlando, now an ambassador in Constantinople, awakes to find that he is now a woman, and the novel indulges in farce and irony to consider the roles of women in the 18th and 19th centuries. As the novel ends in 1928, a year consonant with full suffrage for women. Orlando, now a wife and mother, stands poised at the brink of a future that holds new hope and promise for women.Rainbow Milk by Paul Mendez - In the 1950s, ex-boxer Norman Alonso is a determined and humble Jamaican who has immigrated to Britain with his wife and children to secure a brighter future. Blighted with unexpected illness and racism, Norman and his family are resilient, but are all too aware that their family will need more than just hope to survive in their new country.
At the turn of the millennium, Jesse seeks a fresh start in London, escaping a broken immediate family, a repressive religious community and his depressed hometown in the industrial Black Country. But once he arrives he finds himself at a loss for a new center of gravity, and turns to sex work, music and art to create his own notions of love, masculinity and spirituality.
A wholly original novel as tender as it is visceral, Rainbow Milk is a bold reckoning with race, class, sexuality, freedom, and religion across generations, time, and cultures.Sissy by Jacob Tobia - A heart-wrenching, eye-opening, and giggle-inducing memoir about what it’s like to grow up not sure if you’re (a) a boy, (b) a girl, (c) something in between, or (d) all of the above. Naturally sensitive, playful, creative, and glitter-obsessed, as a child Jacob was given the label "sissy." In the two decades that followed, "sissy" joined forces with "gay," "trans," "nonbinary," and "too-queer-to-function" to become a source of pride and, today, a rallying cry for a much-needed gender revolution. Through revisiting their childhood and calling out the stereotypes that each of us have faced, Jacob invites us to rethink what we know about gender and offers a bold blueprint for a healed world--one free from gender-based trauma and bursting with trans-inclusive feminism.Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde - The essential writings of black lesbian poet and feminist writer Audre Lorde. In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change.Stonewall by Martin Duberman - Renowned historian and activist Martin Duberman tells the full story of this pivotal moment in history. With riveting narrative skill, he re-creates those revolutionary, sweltering nights in vivid detail through the lives of six people who were drawn into the struggle for LGBTQ rights. Their stories combine to form an unforgettable portrait of the repression that led up to the riots, which culminates when they triumphantly participate in the first gay rights march of 1970, the roots of today’s pride marches.The Adrien English Mysteries series by Josh Lanyon - Los Angeles bookseller and aspiring mystery author Adrien English finds himself the prime suspect when his employee—an old high school buddy (and more)—is found stabbed to death in a back alley following a loud and public argument the previous evening. Naturally the cops want to ask Adrien a few questions—and when a few hours later someone breaks into Cloak and Dagger Bookstore, the law is inclined to think Adrien is trying to divert suspicion from himself. Adrien knows better. Adrien knows he's next on the killer's list.The Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat - A trilogy about the political turmoil between two kingdoms, and the personal intrigue between the compelling Prince Laurent and his slave Damen, a former heir to the throne.The Price of Salt by Claire Morgan (pseudonym for Patricia Highsmith) - The story of Therese Belivet, a stage designer trapped in a department-store day job, whose salvation arrives one day in the form of Carol Aird, an alluring suburban housewife in the throes of a divorce. They fall in love and set out across the United States, pursued by a private investigator who eventually blackmails Carol into a choice between her daughter and her lover.The Stonewall Reader edited by the New York Public Library - June 28, 2019 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, which is considered the most significant event in the gay liberation movement, and the catalyst for the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in the United States. Drawing from the New York Public Library’s archives, The Stonewall Reader is a collection of first accounts, diaries, periodic literature, and articles from LGBTQ magazines and newspapers that documented both the years leading up to and the years following the uprising.Tigers and Devils series by Sean Kennedy - The most important things in Simon Murray’s life are football, friends, and film—in that order. His friends despair of him ever meeting someone, but despite his loneliness, Simon is cautious about looking for more. Then his best friends drag him to a party, where he barges into a football conversation and ends up defending the honor of star forward Declan Tyler—unaware that the athlete is present. In that first awkward meeting, neither man has any idea they will change each other's lives forever.
Like his entire family, Simon revels in living in Melbourne, the home of Australian Rules football and mecca for serious fans. There, players are treated like gods—until they do something to fall out of public favor. This year, the public is taking Declan to task for suffering injuries outside his control, so Simon's support is a bright spot.
But as Simon and Declan fumble toward a relationship, keeping Declan's homosexuality a secret from well-meaning friends and an increasingly suspicious media becomes difficult. Nothing can stay hidden forever. Soon Declan will have to choose between the career he loves and the man he wants, and Simon has never been known to make things easy—for himself or for others.Tomorrow Will Be Different by Sarah McBride - Informative, heartbreaking, and profoundly empowering, Tomorrow Will Be Different is McBride’s story of love and loss and a powerful entry point into the LGBTQ community’s battle for equal rights and what it means to be openly transgender. From issues like bathroom access to health care to gender in America, McBride weaves the important political and cultural milestones into a personal journey that will open hearts and change minds.Two Boys Kissing by David Levithan - The based-on-true-events story of Harry and Craig, two 17-year-olds who are about to take part in a 32-hour marathon of kissing to set a new Guinness World Record—all of which is narrated by a Greek Chorus of the generation of gay men lost to AIDS.
While the two increasingly dehydrated and sleep-deprived boys are locking lips, they become a focal point in the lives of other teen boys dealing with languishing long-term relationships, coming out, navigating gender identity, and falling deeper into the digital rabbit hole of gay hookup sites—all while the kissing former couple tries to figure out their own feelings for each other.When Katie Met Cassidy by Camille Perri **- Katie Daniels is a perfection-seeking 28-year-old lawyer living the New York dream. She’s engaged to charming art curator Paul Michael, has successfully made her way up the ladder at a multinational law firm and has a hold on apartments in Soho and the West Village. Suffice it to say, she has come a long way from her Kentucky upbringing. But the rug is swept from under Katie when she is suddenly dumped by her fiancé, Paul Michael, leaving her devastated and completely lost. On a whim, she agrees to have a drink with Cassidy Price-a self-assured, sexually promiscuous woman she meets at work. The two form a newfound friendship,

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DOCUMENTARIES

Before Stonewall - The riots that followed the arrests at New York City's Stonewall Inn in 1969 are widely considered to be a major development in the history of gay and lesbian rights in America. This 1984 documentary film investigates national cultural perceptions of homosexuality before the event, looking back on previous decades, particularly in regard to conflicts with police and censorship. In addition to interviews with activists and scholars, the film includes the reflections of renowned writer Allen Ginsberg. In 2019, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen - A 2020 American documentary film that is "an unprecedented, eye-opening look at transgender depictions in film and television, revealing how Hollywood simultaneously reflects and manufactures our deepest anxieties about gender. Leading trans thinkers and creatives, including Laverne Cox, Lilly Wachowski, Yance Ford, Mj Rodriguez, Jamie Clayton, and Chaz Bono, share their reactions and resistance to some of Hollywood’s most beloved moments."
Source: http://www.disclosurethemovie.com/aboutForbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives - A 1992 Canadian documentary film about the lives of lesbians and their experiences of lesbian pulp fiction. The film presents the stories of lesbians whose desire for community led them on a search for the few public beer parlors or bars that would tolerate openly queer women in the 1950s and 1960s in Canada. Each woman discusses her experience in realizing her attraction to women, and how she pursued relationships in the repressive society.Kiki - A 2016 American-Swedish co-produced documentary film that takes place in New York City, and focuses on the "drag and voguing scene [and] surveys the lives of LGBT youth of color at a time when Black Lives Matter and trans rights are making front-page headlines" (Hollywood Reporter). The film "follows seven characters from the Kiki community over the course of four years, using their preparations and spectacular performances at events known as Kiki balls as a framing device while delving into their battles with homelessness, illness and prejudice as well as their gains towards political influence and the conquering of affirming gender-expressions. In KIKI we meet Twiggy Pucci Garçon, the founder and gatekeeper for the Haus of Pucci, Chi Chi, Gia, Chris, Divo, Symba and Zariya. Each of these remarkable young people represents a unique and powerful personal story, illuminating the Kiki scene in particular, as well as queer life in the U.S. for LGBTQ youth-of-color as a whole."
Source: http://www.kikimovie.com/synopsisMadonna: Truth or Dare - A 1991 American documentary film chronicling the life of singer–songwriter Madonna during her 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour. The documentary has been noted as a groundbreaking film for its casual portrayal of homosexuality, and was compared to the documentary "Paris Is Burning (1990)."Paris is Burning - A 1990 American documentary filmed in the mid-to-late 1980s, it chronicles the ball culture of New York City and the African-American, Latino, gay, and transgender communities involved in it. Critics consider the film to be an invaluable documentary of the end of the "Golden Age" of New York City drag balls, and a thoughtful exploration of race, class, gender, and sexuality in America. In 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."Studio 54 - "Studio 54 was the epicenter of 70s hedonism--a place that not only redefined the nightclub, but also came to symbolize an entire era. Its co-owners, Ian Schrager and Steve Rubell, two friends from Brooklyn, seemed to come out of nowhere to suddenly preside over a new kind of New York society. Now, 39 years after the velvet rope was first slung across the club's hallowed threshold, a feature documentary tells the real story behind the greatest club of all time."
Source: FandangoThe Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson - A 2017 American documentary film the chronicles Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, prominent figures in gay liberation and transgender rights movement in New York City from the 1960s to the 1990s and co-founders of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. The film centers on activist Victoria Cruz's investigation into Johnson's death in 1992, which was initially ruled a suicide by police despite suspicious circumstances.The New Black - A 2014 documentary film "that tells the story of how the African-American community is grappling with the gay rights issue in light of the gay marriage movement and the fight over civil rights. The film documents activists, families and clergy on both sides of the campaign to legalize gay marriage and examines homophobia in the black community’s institutional pillar—the black church and reveals the Christian right wing’s strategy of exploiting this phenomenon in order to pursue an anti-gay political agenda. The New Black takes viewers into the pews and onto the streets and provides a seat at the kitchen table as it tells the story of the historic fight to win marriage equality in Maryland and charts the evolution of this divisive issue within the black community."
Source: http://www.newblackfilm.com/the-film/The Times of Harvey Milk - A 1984 American documentary film that documents the political career of Harvey Milk, who was San Francisco's first openly gay supervisor. The film shows Milk's rise from a neighborhood activist to a symbol of gay political achievement, through to his assassination in November 1978 at San Francisco's city hall, and the Dan White trial and aftermath. In 2012, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.We Were Here - A 2011 American documentary film about the HIV/AIDS crisis in San Francisco. It illuminates the profound personal and community issues raised by the AIDS epidemic as well as the broad political and social upheavals it unleashed.

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MOVIES

A Single Man (2009) - George is a college professor who recently lost his lover, Jim, in a car accident. Terribly grief-stricken, George plans to commit suicide. As he goes about his daily routine and puts his affairs in order, his encounters with colleagues, students and an old friend lead him to make a final decision as to whether life is worth living without Jim.Ammonite (2020) - In 1800s England, acclaimed but unrecognized fossil hunter Mary Anning works alone on the rugged Southern coastline. With the days of her famed discoveries behind her, she now searches for common fossils to sell to tourists to support herself and her ailing mother. When a wealthy visitor entrusts Mary with the care of his wife Charlotte Murchison, she cannot afford to turn his offer down. Proud and relentlessly passionate about her work, Mary initially clashes with her unwelcome guest, but despite the distance between their social class and personalities, an intense bond begins to develop, compelling the two women to determine the true nature of their relationship.Call Me By Your Name (2017) - It's the summer of 1983, and precocious 17-year-old Elio Perlman is spending the days with his family at their 17th-century villa in Lombardy, Italy. He soon meets 24-year-old Oliver, a handsome graduate student who's working as an intern for Elio's father. Amid the sun-drenched splendor of their surroundings, Elio and Oliver discover the heady beauty of awakening desire over the course of a summer that will alter their lives forever.Carol (2015) - The film tells the story of a forbidden affair between an aspiring female photographer and an older woman going through a difficult divorce. Therese Belivet spots the beautiful, elegant Carol perusing the doll displays in a 1950s Manhattan department store. The two women develop a fast bond that becomes a love with complicated consequences.C.R.A.Z.Y. (2005) - Teenager Zachary Beaulieu is confused about his sexuality and is in conflict with his Canadian-Catholic upbringing, which alienates his father Gervais and confuses his mother Laurianne. Forcing himself to like girls, Zachary also has to cope with his older brothers, who don't make his life any easier, but when he finally accepts his true feelings, will his family still accept him?I Killed My Mother (J'ai tué ma mère) (2009) - A Canadian drama film written, directed, produced by, and starring Xavier Dolan, in his directorial debut. Loosely autobiographical, it follows the complicated relationship between a young man Hubert Minel (Dolan) and his mother.Love, Simon (2018) - A romantic comedy-drama that centers on Simon Spier, a closeted gay high school boy who struggles to balance his friends, his family, and the blackmailer threatening to out him to the entire school, while simultaneously attempting to discover the identity of the anonymous classmate with whom he has fallen in love online.Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List (2015) - Best friends Naomi and Ely have loved each other their whole lives, even though Ely is gay. The institution of a "No Kiss List" has prevented the two from rifts in the past, but bonds are tested when they both fall for the same guy.North Sea Texas (2011) -A Dutch romantic drama about Pim who lives with his ex-beauty queen, single mother in a small town on the Belgian coast. Introverted, he spends his childhood drawing and dreaming up fantasy lives while keeping his emerging desires a secret. As a teenager, he grows infatuated with his older neighbor and motorcycling hero, Gino.RENT: Filmed Live on Broadway (2008) - A film of the final performance of the original Broadway production of the musical Rent on September 7, 2008, with some footage of the closing night celebration. The film is assembled from footage shot at the September 7 performance as well as a day of shooting on August 20. It includes a reprise of "Seasons of Love" featuring both the final cast and cast members from past productions, including the original Broadway cast following the finale of the show proper.Supernova (2020) - Sam and Tusker, partners of twenty years, are traveling across England in their old camper van visiting friends, family and places from their past. Following a life-changing diagnosis, their time together has become more important than ever until secret plans test their love like never before.The Normal Heart (2014) - The film depicts the rise of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City between 1981 and 1984, as seen through the eyes of writer/activist Ned Weeks, the founder of a prominent HIV advocacy group. Weeks prefers public confrontations to the calmer, more private strategies favored by his associates, friends, and closeted lover Felix Turner. Their differences of opinion lead to arguments that threaten to undermine their shared goals.The Prom (2020) - A musical comedy film adapted from the musical of the same name. The musical follows four Broadway actors lamenting their days of fame as they travel to the conservative town of Edgewater, Indiana to help a lesbian student banned from bringing her girlfriend to high school prom.Vita & Virginia (2018) - A biographical romantic drama film adapted from the 1992 play "Vita & Virginia" by Eileen Atkins. Set in the 1920s, the writers Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf move in different London circles. When they meet, Vita decides Virginia will be her next conquest. They have an affair against the background of each of their open marriages.Weekend (2011) - After a drunken house party with his straight mates, Russell heads out to a gay club. Just before closing time he picks up Glen, but what's expected to be just a one-night stand becomes something else, something special. This film tells the story of two men who meet and begin a sexual relationship the weekend before one of them plans to leave the country.Were the World Mine (2008) - A bullied and demoralized gay student at an all-boys school uses a magical flower derived from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" to turn many in his community gay, including a handsome jock with whom he is secretly in love.

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TV SHOWS

Betty - A diverse group of young women navigate their lives through the male-dominated world of skateboarding in New York City.Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Buffy is a Slayer, one in a long line of young women chosen for a specific mission: to seek out and destroy vampires, demons and other forces of darkness. Unlike her predecessors, Buffy establishes a group of supportive friends who aids her in her battles with evil, including Willow, Xander and Cordelia. Her battles with evil are frequent, since Sunnydale, where Buffy and friends live, sits atop a gateway to the realm of the demons. The series was the first in the U.S. to portray a long-term lesbian relationship.Dawson's Creek - A teen drama series about the lives of a close-knit group of friends beginning in high school and continuing into college. The series was the first in the U.S. to show a kiss shared between two men on television.Dear White People - Based on the acclaimed film of the same name, the series follows a group of black students at Winchester University, a predominantly white Ivy League college. The students are faced with a landscape of cultural bias, social injustice, misguided activism and slippery politics. Through an absurdist lens, the series uses irony, self-deprecation, brutal honesty, and humor to highlight issues that still plague today's "post-racial" society.EastSiders - In Silver Lake, Los Angeles, Cal learns that Thom, his boyfriend of four years, has been cheating on him with Jeremy. Though upset, Cal decides that he does not want to end the relationship. However, Cal also cheats with Jeremy. Though he intends to tell Thom about the affair, he does not. At the same time, Cal's best friend Kathy and her boyfriend Ian reach their six-month anniversary, marking the relationship as Kathy's longest but Ian's shortest.Euphoria - The series follows the troubled life of 17-year-old Rue, a drug addict fresh from rehab with no plans to stay clean. Circling in Rue's orbit are Jules, a transgender girl searching for where she belongs; Nate, a jock whose anger issues mask sexual insecurities; Chris, a football star who finds the adjustment from high school to college harder than expected; Cassie, whose sexual history continues to dog her; and Kat, a body-conscious teen exploring her sexuality. As the classmates struggle to make sense of their futures, the series tackles the teenage landscape of substance-enhanced parties and anxiety-ridden day-to-day life with empathy and candor.Feel Good - The show follows the development of George and Mae's romance in contemporary London. Mae, a Canadian comedian, meets George, a repressed middle-class English woman, at the comedy club where she performs. The pair begin dating, and George learns that Mae is a former drug addict. George encourages Mae to attend a Narcotics Anonymous meeting, where she meets fellow recovering addicts like Maggie, a quirky middle-aged woman who takes Mae under her wing. As the series progresses, George struggles to tell friends and family about her relationship with Mae, to Mae's frustration.Gentleman Jack - Set in 1832, the brilliant, endearing Miss Anne Lister leaves Hastings brokenhearted and heads to the lush landscape of Halifax, West Yorkshire, England to restore her uncle's estate that she has inherited. While restoring the estate she finds that the family land has a coal mine and finds that it is being stolen by two brothers. This newly instated, unusual lady landowner and landlord encounters a potentially blossoming and dangerous romance with another woman, which she records in a cryptic diary that no one can decode.Killing Eve - Bored with her protection role within the British intelligence agencies, Eve Polastri is overly interested in female assassins, their psychologies, and their methods of killing. After brashly investigating behind-the-scenes in relation to a witness she is handling, she is fired from MI5. However, to her delight, she is recruited by a secret division within MI6 chasing an international assassin who calls herself Villanelle. Eve crosses paths with Villanelle and discovers that members within both of their secret circles may be more interconnected than she is comfortable with, but forms an obsession with Villanelle that is more than enthusiastically reciprocated. Both women begin to focus less on their initial missions in order to desperately learn more about the other.Orange is the New Black - Piper Chapman is a public relations executive with a career and a fiancé when her past suddenly catches up to her. In her mid-30s she is sentenced to spend time in a minimum-security women's prison in Connecticut for her association with a drug runner 10 years earlier. Forced to trade power suits for prison orange, Chapman makes her way through the corrections system and adjusts to life behind bars, making friends with the many eccentric, unusual, and unexpected people she meets.Pose - An American drama television series about New York City's African-American and Latino LGBTQ and gender-nonconforming drag ball culture scene in the 1980s and, in the second season, early 1990s. Featured characters are dancers and models who compete for trophies and recognition in this underground culture, and who support one another in a network of chosen families known as Houses.Queer As Folk - Brash humor and genuine emotion make up this series revolving around the lives, loves, ambitions, careers, and friendships of a group of gay men and women living on Liberty Avenue in contemporary Pittsburgh, PA. The show offers an unapologetic look at modern, urban gay and lesbian lives while addressing the most critical health and political issues affecting the community.Queer Eye - Each episode features a team of gay professionals in the fields of fashion, personal grooming, interior design, entertaining and culture collectively known as the "Fab Five," performing a makeover (in the parlance of the show, a "make-better"), usually for a straight man: revamping wardrobe, redecorating, and offering advice on grooming, lifestyle, and food.Rupaul's Drag Race - An American reality competition television series that documents RuPaul in the search for "America's next drag superstar." RuPaul plays the role of host, mentor, and head judge for this series, as contestants are given different challenges each week. RuPaul's Drag Race employs a panel of judges, including RuPaul, Michelle Visage, an alternating third main judge of either Carson Kressley or Ross Matthews, and a host of other guest judges, who critique contestants' progress throughout the competition.Schitt's Creek - The series follows the formerly wealthy Rose family's trials and tribulations. After their business manager embezzles the family business, Rose Video, the Rose family loses its fortune and relocates to Schitt's Creek, a small town they once purchased as a joke. Now living in a motel, Johnny and Moira Rose —along with their adult children, David and Alexis — must adjust to life without money and with each other.Sense8 - The series tells the story of eight strangers from different parts of the world who suddenly discover that they are "sensates:" human beings who are mentally and emotionally linked. The show explores issues related to identity, sexuality, gender, and politics; and its central theme is an embrace of empathy across differences.Sex Education - Socially awkward high school student Otis may not have much experience in the lovemaking department, but he gets good guidance on the topic in his personal sex ed course -- living with him mom Jean, who is a sex therapist. Being surrounded by manuals, videos and tediously open conversations about sex, Otis has become a reluctant expert on the subject. When his classmates learn about his home life, Otis decides to use his insider knowledge to improve his status at school, so he teams with whip-smart bad girl Maeve to set up an underground sex therapy clinic to deal with their classmates' problems. But through his analysis of teenage sexuality, Otis realizes that he may need some therapy of his own.Skam - A Norwegian teen drama streaming television series about the daily life of teenagers at the Hartvig Nissen School. The series follows a new main character each season, with each season focusing on particular topics, ranging from relationship difficulties, identity, eating disorders, sexual assault, homosexuality, mental health issues, religion, and forbidden love.Steven Universe - An animated television series that tells the coming-of-age story of a young boy, Steven Universe, who lives with the Crystal Gems — magical, humanoid aliens named Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl — in the fictional town of Beach City. Steven, who is half-Gem, has adventures with his friends and helps the Gems protect the world from their own kind. The themes of the series include love, family, and the importance of healthy interpersonal relationships. The series has developed a broad fanbase and has been critically acclaimed for its design, music, voice acting, characterization, prominence of LGBTQ themes and science fantasy world-building.The Bisexual - Set in London, New Yorker Leila is on a break from her 10-year relationship with girlfriend and colleague Sadie. Leila moves in with author Gabe and explores her sexuality and begins sleeping with men. However, she is reluctant to identify as bisexual to those around her, particularly her best friend Deniz.. Sadie, meanwhile, is making the most of her newfound independence and entering a period of massive changes in her life.The Fosters - The series follows the lives of police officer Stef Foster and her life partner Lena Adams, a school vice principal, and their multi-ethnic, blended family. Stef and Lena are the parents of Brandon Foster, who is Stef's biological son from her previous marriage, and the twins, Jesus and Mariana, who were adopted as small children. At the outset of the series, the couple take in two foster children, Callie and Jude, whom they later adopt. Also part of their lives is Mike Foster, Stef's patrol partner, ex-husband, and Brandon's biological father.The L Word - An American-Canadian co-production television drama that follows an ensemble cast of friends who live in West Hollywood, California; it featured American television's first ensemble cast depicting lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. The characters date, get into committed relationships, consider having families, hook up, break up, question their sexuality, stay in the closet, come out, or sleep around -- sometimes all of the above.Vida - A drama series about two Mexican-American siblings from East Los Angeles. Party girl Lyn lives a carefree life in the Bay Area. She couldn't be more different than, or distanced from, her sister Emma, with whom she has no relationship. A death in their family forces them to return to their old stomping grounds, where they confront long-repressed feelings and learn the surprising truth about their mother's identity.Will & Grace - The series is set in New York City and focuses on the relationship between Will Truman, a gay lawyer, and his best friend Grace Adler, a Jewish woman who owns an interior design firm. Also featured are their friends Karen Walker, a demonically alcoholic socialite, and Jack McFarland, a flamboyantly gay actor. The interplay of relationships features the trials and tribulations of dating, marriage, divorce, and casual sex; as well as comical key stereotypes of gay and Jewish culture.Wynonna Earp - On her 27th birthday, Wynonna Earp, the great-great-granddaughter of legendary lawman Wyatt Earp, inherits the special power to return revenants, the reincarnated outlaws that Wyatt had killed, back to Hell. Using her ancestor's magic gun, "Peacemaker," Wynonna works to break her family's curse by sending demons back where they belong. She also fights other supernatural beings that inhabit the Ghost River Triangle, a cursed territory near the Canadian Rockies that includes Purgatory, her hometown. After being recruited by the Black Badge Division (BBD), a secret government agency led by Special Agent Xavier Dolls, she is joined by an ageless Doc Holliday and Wynonna's sister, Waverly Earp. Nicole Haught, a Purgatory Sheriff's Deputy and Waverly's girlfriend, assists the team in her local police role.Work in Progress - Abby is a 45-year-old self-identified "fat, queer dyke" whose misfortune and despair unexpectedly lead her to a vibrantly transformative relationship. Chicago improv mainstay Abby McEnany co-created and stars in this uniquely human comedy series.