Celebrate LGBTQIA Pride Month with WFYI

Every year in June, LGBTQIA+ Pride Month is celebrated in the United States. June was chosen to commemorate the riots held by members of the LGBTQIA+ community against a police raid at the Stonewall Inn in New York City on June 28, 1969. On the first anniversary of Stonewall, gay and lesbian communities held gay pride parades in Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles and in New York near the Stonewall Inn.

Since the Stonewall riots, dedicated activists have formed LGBTQIA organizations throughout the country, including in Indianapolis and other Central Indiana towns. The Pride celebrations that occur each June serve as a reminder of both their hard-earned progress and the movement for equality that continues today. 

Tune in for Powerful Stories

• Queer Silicon Valley on WFYI: June 2 at 9 p.m.
  Silicon Valley, known as the high tech capital of the world, has had a profound impact on the LGBTQ+ movement in the United States. The film deftly memoralizes the work of a generation of activists who were all part of the LGBTQ movement in San Jose and Silicon Valley, from the 1970s to now.
• Prideland on WFYI: June 2 at 10 p.m.
  Follow queer actor Dyllón Burnside on a journey to discover how LGBTQ Americans are finding ways to live authentically and with pride in the modern South.
• Out in Rural America on WFYI: June 26 at 4 pm
  Out in Rural America explores the struggles and joys of being lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender and gender queer in rural America. Following five stories from the LGBTQ+ community over a six-year period, the film explores the issues of self-doubt, discrimination, acceptance and small-town and Midwestern LGBTQ+ life from a cultural, social, familial and religious perspective.
   

Stories of Joy, Friendship & Excellence

• A Fine Girl from Reel South
  Brandi Jarrow, a 27-year old trans woman of color from New Orleans, takes the personal and professional success she has achieved as a hairstylist, and works to open an inclusive luxury salon. The film is a joyful, optimistic portrait of what's possible when we include and uplift trans people as essential contributors to our community.
• Jack & Yaya from America Reframed
  From a young age, Yaya and Jack saw each other as they truly were, a girl and a boy, even though most of the world didn’t see them that way. As they grew older, they supported each other as they both came out as transgender. Jack & Yaya follows these two friends for a year and explores their unique, thirty-year relationship.
• Ballerina Boys from American Masters
  Discover Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (The Trocks), an all-male company that for 45 years has offered audiences their passion for ballet classics mixed with exuberant comedy. With every step they poke fun at their strictly gendered art form.

Cultural Connections to Pride

• To the Future, with Love on POV
  Meet 19-year-old Hunter “Pixel” Jimenez, a nonbinary trans boy caught between the expectations of his Guatemalan immigrant family and his dreams of living happily ever after.
• Alabama Bound on Reel South
  In the months leading up to the Supreme Court decision on marriage equality, gay families in Alabama were busy fighting discriminatory state laws. Alabama Bound chronicles the roller-coaster ride for gay rights in the South, and a resilient community that lives with both frustration and hope in a place where the line between church and state is often blurred.
• Queer Latine Voices at Teatro Pregones on The First Twenty
  Latine theater makers explore how a new millennium for queer identity and storytelling took shape in the South Bronx, including Charles Rice-González, in this film from Jorge B. Merced and Pregones/PRTT. Access: Audio description, captions.

Diverse Stories from LBGTQIA Voices

• Senior Prom from Independent Lens
  For so many high-schoolers, prom is a rite of passage in all of its love-filled, well-coiffed, abundantly photographed glory. But for generations of LGBTQ+ youth, prom has been emblematic of an exclusion from a world they could not experience as their authentic selves.
• Masters of Drag from American Masters
  In this digital series, New York's sweetest drag diva Peppermint tells the story of pioneering American drag artists. In the process, she demonstrates how drag is a performance art form that has thrived in this country for generations, entertaining LGBTQ+ and general audiences alike, and providing the former with an important outlet of self-expression.
• In This Family from the PBS Short Film Festival
  Ten years after being outed by his teacher, a gay man revisits raw audio recordings of his Filipino family's reactions.

WFYI Passport members can discover even more documentaries, dramas and journalism reflecting a wide range of experiences and stories from the LGBTQIA community. Learn more about this WFYI member benefit today!