Before Homosexuals

New York City's Stonewall Inn is regarded by many as the site of gay and lesbian liberation since it was at this bar that drag queens fought back against police June 27-28, 1969. This documentary uses extensive archival film, movie clips and personal recollections to construct an audiovisual history of the gay community before the Stonewall riots.

This sequel to "Before Stonewall" documents the history of gay and lesbian life from the riots at Stonewall in 1969 to the present. Narrated by Melissa Etheridge, the film explains the work, struggles, victories, and defeats the gay community has weathered to become a vibrant and integral part of North American society.

A feature-length documentary that explores the immense changes that occurred for gays, lesbians and transgender people living in the Global South. In the last decade of the 20th Century, a new heightened visibility began spreading throughout the developing world and the battles between families, fundamentalist religions, and governments around sexual and gender identity had begun. But in the West, few people knew about this historic social upheaval, until 52 men on Cairo’s Queen Boat discothèque were arrested for crimes of debauchery. That explosive story focused attention to the lives and trials of gay people coming out in the developing world and the film chronicles those events.

Finished a quarter century after the earth-shaking protests that forever altered the public perception of LGBTQ people in America, Stonewall 25: Global Voices of Pride and Protest, produced by the gay news program “In the Life,” took the measure of what’s changed for the Queer community since 1969—and what hasn’t. Captures a million-strong anniversary march in NYC, fanfare around Gay Games IV, a visit to the historic Stonewall Inn, and testimony from prominent gay and lesbian figures and allies, including Sir Ian McKellen, Harvey Fierstein, and Joan Rivers.