Founding moments in the modern fight for LGBTQ+ rights in America.

Welcome to our biweekly newsletter! In these emails, we bring you a curated set of nonfiction stories in different mediums from around the web—not just POV docs but also longform essays, photos, podcasts, and more—on one theme. For straightforward updates about POV broadcasts, industry news, or screenings and events, be sure to subscribe to our other newsletters ([link removed]) !
Pride and Visibility

This past weekend, the country celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, a founding moment in the modern fight for LGBTQ rights in America.

To commemorate, you could read up on the various pride flags and their meanings from Budweiser ([link removed][UNIQID]) or snag a rainbow IKEA bag ([link removed][UNIQID]) (this writer would appreciate one delivered to the POV office immediately, please). Measured against the half century since Stonewall, tweets from a multinational beer company and rainbow-festooned totes mark an incredibly rapid acceleration of LGBTQ visibility.

But what does Pride mean in 2019? And what are the limitations of visibility in the age of rainbow crosswalks and Listerine bottles ([link removed][UNIQID]) ? Plenty's ([link removed][UNIQID]) been written ([link removed][UNIQID]) about Rainbow Capitalism—the critique of corporations commodifying support for the LGBTQ community as a marketing tactic, without actually practicing allyship and continuing to harm communities in other ways. One stark example is Gilead, the drug company that manufactures the pill Truvada, a pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) that can reduce the risk of HIV from sex by over 90 percent. Without insurance, a 30-day supply costs over $1,700 a month, out of reach for communities that need it the most ([link removed][UNIQID]) . A
frequent sponsor for Pride parades across the country, Gilead and its CEO were recently confronted by U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ([link removed][UNIQID]) for Truvada's price gouging.

Editorial feature on Tongues Untied (POV Season 4).
Not Waiting to Be Seen

For Jenna Wortham ([link removed][UNIQID]) , "queerness has never been more visible, more trending and more in demand and yet, our lives and our livelihood feel extremely tenuous and fragile." She describes the universe of the queer club, a constellation of spaces where queer people—especially black, brown, nonbinary and transgender folks—can meet with friends, meet with strangers, or just serve a look and be seen.

As such spaces—from late-century Harlem ballrooms to contemporary warehouse parties—dwindle, either due to organizer burnout or gentrification, independent film plays a vital role in preserving stories that parade floats and rainbow ads can't.

Here at POV, we often look back at the groundbreaking Marlon Riggs film Tongues Untied ([link removed][UNIQID]) (POV 1991). Broadcasting in the wake of the AIDS epidemic and at the height of the culture wars, it showcased nude black men kissing and repeating the racist and homophobic slurs used against them. For Riggs, who was HIV-positive and died of AIDS in 1994, the film was "an affirmation of the feelings and experiences of black gay men, made for them by a black gay man ([link removed][UNIQID]) ."

Venice, Terrain, Patreese and Renata, film subjects of Out in the Night (POV 2016). CREDIT: LYRIC CABRAL
When Queer People are Visible—In the Worst Way

Unfortunately, when queer people aren't consulted in the creation of media narratives around queer folks, they can be the subjects of vicious scrutiny.

In 2006, the press villainized a group of black gay women for defending themselves against a man harrassing them in New York City's West Village, the home of the Stonewall Inn. Tabloids called them "Killer Lesbians" as the women were brought to court, where their attacker called the incident "a hate crime against a straight man." Out in the Night ([link removed][UNIQID]) (POV 2016), which follows the women's stories and examines the intersection of discrimination they face as black queer women, shows how visibility is not enough to protect LGBTQ folks against persecution and violence. Read POV Engage's in-depth discussion guide ([link removed][UNIQID]) for more background, including stats on violence against queer POC (one alarming fact from the guide: In 2013, 70 percent of hate-violent homicide victims were transgender women).
Griffin (2018), Photograph by Meg Turner for photo series ‘The Actual Truth’. CREDIT: MEG TURNER
When Queer People Are Just ... People

The criticism of rainbow capitalism also raises a radical question: What happens when we don't make "LGBTQ" a market category but instead recognize sexual orientation and gender identity as facets of the human experience in all its flawed complexity?

Take The Gospel of Eureka (POV 2019), about a small town in Arkansas where a popular passion play and a gay bar invite the residents to challenge assumptions about Christian faith and sexual identity.. (Heads up: it's streaming on the POV website ([link removed][UNIQID]) until Monday ([link removed][UNIQID]) , July 8).

In America ReFramed's Winter at Westbeth ([link removed][UNIQID]) , gay seniors at an elderly home for New York artists pursue their artistic visions well into old age, showing how creativity is key to survival.

For filmmakers from marginalized backgrounds, documentaries are a powerful means to reclaim damaging narratives. That's how filmmaker PJ Raval uses the medium in Call Her Ganda (POV 2019) to tell the story of Jennifer Laude, a transgender woman murdered by a U.S. Marine. Following the fight for justice led by a transgender journalist, Laude's mother and an activist lawyer, Raval, who is gay and Filipino, turns Call Her Ganda into an invigorating spotlight on the Filipina women demanding justice after a century's worth of U.S. colonialism, exploitation and homophobia. Call Her Ganda ([link removed][UNIQID]) is a searing, intimate film that's well worth streaming ([link removed][UNIQID]) .
What's open in our tabs?

Here are some more recs to continue the conversation about queer art, activism and representation in the media and beyond:
* The Muxes of Oaxaca are recognized as the third gender of Mexico, surpassing the boundaries of verbal definition. This photographer documents them through art ([link removed][UNIQID]) .. (Keep your eye out for more on Muxes in POV Shorts Season 2.)
* Snapchat films: The Way It Should Be ([link removed][UNIQID]) : by Terence Nance and Chanelle Aponte Pearson, a story of love and friendship as lived and told by queer women of color.
* Incarceration can have different consequences ([link removed][UNIQID]) for the LGBTQ+ community. At disproportionately high rates, the violence of the U.S. prison system extends to those marginalized within them.
* Losing representation on the shelves of Hong Kong, queer readers and artists create a new space to showcase work in The Queer Zine Library in Hong Kong That’s Finding a Global Community ([link removed][UNIQID])
* How the homophobic media covered the 1969 Stonewall uprising ([link removed][UNIQID]) —with many newsrooms now providing guides on responsibly covering LGBTQ+ communities, take a look back into how the mainstream media reported on the Stonewall riots.
* In Food 4 Thot, we find “a multiracial mix of queer writers talk about sex, relationships, race, identity, what we like to read, and who we like to read.” Their episode, Bye, Bye Binary! ([link removed][UNIQID]) discusses gender bending moments and their earliest notions of conforming to gender.
* Learn more about Sylvia Rivera, a transgender activist who pushed against the white, middle class LGBTQ+ establishment in Stonewall and beyond here: Sylvia Rivera Changed Queer and Trans Activism Forever ([link removed][UNIQID]) .
* Stonewall at 50: ([link removed][UNIQID]#media-gallery-media-1) 15 intergenerational portraits of LGBTQ+ activists and artists, celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising.
* At the Grey Art Gallery in New York, over 200 artworks and visual pieces exploring the reverberations of the LGBTQ movement are on display. From Keith Haring to Lyle Ashton Harris, selected works can be viewed online in Art after Stonewall, 1969-1989 ([link removed][UNIQID]) .
* #TheGalleryProject ([link removed][UNIQID]) : Transnational Queer Underground’s virtual gallery to connect LGBTQ+ artists around the world. This ([link removed][UNIQID]) is how it was conceived.
* Stonewall National Monument Flythrough ([link removed][UNIQID]) - CyArk, digital archive of the world’s heritage sites, creates the first 3D record of the Stonewall Inn (the same 3D mapping org whose work will be used to rebuild Notre Dame ([link removed][UNIQID]) ).
* Amid discussions of the ever-shifting meaning of “pride,” 35 queer photographers define it for themselves, creating a gallery ([link removed][UNIQID]) of work that demonstrate the intimate and vast definitions of pride and identity.

That’s it for this time. As always, continue to write in with your responses and recommendations!

Yours,

- The POV Team
Want updates about POV broadcasts or industry news? Subscribe to our other newsletters ([link removed])

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