Last week I discussed the film Mom’s Apple Pie, which documented the role of lesbian moms in the early LGBT rights movement (and is now out on home video).
Now comes word of Raising Hell, a half-hour documentary by Ed Webb-Ingall that profiles the experiences of the young adult and adult children of lesbian and gay parents in the U.K., starting back in the late 1960’s. No information yet on release dates or international distribution.
Understanding our past helps us plan for the future. Maybe I’m biased by my training as a historian, but I really do believe that. It’s good to see filmmakers capturing not just lesbian and gay history, but the history of lesbian and gay parents and our children in particular.
Thanks to One More Lesbian for this trailer.
My mom came out when I was 4, in 1975. I moved in with her and her partner (now wife) when I was 9. Her partner’s kids joined us the next year and then the son moved back in with his father. That was a long way of saying that our family trimmed down to two women and two daughters. I’m forty now. And sadly I think the hardest thing about growing up in the first wave of gay and lesbian households, was feeling that I lost my community when it was clear that I’m mostly straight. I feel queer but I don’t have a queer community. My solution was to marry a bisexual man, that was how I figured I’d feel most at home with a man. But it’s turned out to be a slippery slope, 10 years into our marriage he’s finally recognizing that he is really gay. And the thing is, we adore each other, I’m very supportive, but now I wish I had peers.