LGBT Studies in Video Series | Alexander Street

LGBT Studies in Video Series

LGBT Studies in Video Volumes I and II is a cinematic survey of the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people as well as the cultural and political evolution of the LGBT community. Both volumes features award-winning documentaries, interviews, archival footage, and select feature films exploring LGBT history, gay culture and subcultures, civil rights, marriage equality, LGBT families, AIDS, transgender issues, religious perspectives on homosexuality, global comparative experiences, and other topics.

LGBT Studies in Video, Volume I

This first-of-its-kind collection has cross-disciplinary relevance beyond LGBT courses, serving research and teaching needs in sociology, anthropology, psychology, counseling, history, political science, gender studies, cultural studies, and religious studies.

A highlight of LGBT Studies in Video is the rare and hard to find video content from the pioneering gay filmmaker Pat Rocco. His prolific collection of films from the 60s and 70s includes Sign of Protest which documents a Gay Liberation march in Los Angeles. Other videos in Pat Rocco collection include: Mondo Rocco, Pat Rocco Dares, and We Were There. 

LGBT Studies in Video is complete with international content, works from independent filmmakers, and festival-winning films. Current content partners include Frameline, A&E Television Networks, Filmakers Library, Entertainment One, Fanlight Productions, First Run Features, Icarus Films, and more. The films are carefully selected by our editors in consultation with subject matter experts and include titles such as:

  • Just Married: The Epic Battle Over Gay Marriage, which examines the events in Massachusetts following the state supreme court’s 4:3 ruling in favor of same-sex marriage.
  • Metamorphosis: Man into Woman, which presents a candid, non-sensational look at the physical and emotional preparation in advance of gender reassignment surgery.
  • Abomination: Homosexuality and the Ex-Gay Movement, profiling the journeys of four gay Christians who did everything possible to become heterosexual by following the “treatment” protocols of the so-called ex-gay ministries.
  • For Love and For Life: The 1987 March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights, a compilation of footage documenting the Great March where 650,000 lesbians, gay men and their supporters came to Washington, DC and made history. 
  • Hand on the Pulse, includes interviews and rare archival footage of the life of feminist and activist Joan Nestle who became a co founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archive in New York City. 

LGBT Studies in Video, Volume II

Building off the first volume of LGBT Studies in Video, this curated selection of LGBTQ+ videos cover various topics from Trans rights to AIDS activism to the intersectionality of gender identity and race. One of our primary partners for this collection is Frameline, a nonprofit media organization that produces the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, the oldest film festival devoted to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender programming currently in existence. Other partners include, Breaking Glass Pictures, Chip Taylor Communications, Zadig Productions, and independent filmmakers such as Mattioli Productions.

 Film highlights include:

  • TransMilitary, around 15,500 transgender people serve in the U.S. military (notably the largest transgender employer in the U.S.), where they must conceal their gender identity because military policies ban their service. TransMilitary chronicles the lives of four individuals defending their country’s freedom while fighting for their own. They put their careers and their families’ livelihoods on the line by coming out as transgender to top brass officials in the Pentagon in hopes of attaining the equal right to serve.
  • Dykes, Camera, Action!, Lesbians didn’t always get to see themselves on screen. But between Stonewall, the feminist movement, and the experimental cinema of the 1970s, they built visibility, and transformed the social imagination about queerness.
  • Queer Coolie-tudes, is a creative essay documentary and queer ethnography which traces the intergenerational lives, histories, identities, familial relations and sexualities of a diverse range of subjects (academics, artists, and activists) from the Indo-Caribbean diaspora in Canada. Some are mixed race, including: dougla (Indian-African mixture), callaloo (creole mixtures), genderqueer, disabled, aids activist, and perform drag identity.
  • Gaysians is an exploration of family, immigration and language through the voices of five queer and trans Asian-Americans from New York City. The subjects share stories about their families, and in doing so, shed light on the complicated histories that have shaped these intimate and personal relationships.
  • Bolo Bolo, through interviews, interspersed with images of gay sexual encounters, film explores responses to the AIDS crisis by members of the South Asian community of Toronto, Canada.

Access points for research and discovery

Browse by people, themes, and topics. View videos by filmmaker, country of origin, production date, producer, and other features. More than 15 combinable search fields let you cross-search all video transcripts, liner notes, bibliographic data (including producer, series, title, country of origin, publication date, narrator, production staff, and more), and many other indexed fields, including person discussed, year discussed, and all of the browse options listed above.

Functionality for scholarship and classroom use

  • Synchronized, searchable transcripts run alongside each video.
  • Visual tables of contents let you quickly scan each video.
  • Permanent URLs let users cite and share video.
  • An embeddable video player lets libraries and instructors deliver video content to other users on secure Web site pages or via course
  • management systems.
  • Rich playlist functionality lets users create, annotate, and organize clips and include links to other content.
  • Permissions for in-class, on-campus, and remote-access viewing are all included in the license terms.

Publication details

LGBT Studies in Video is an online collection available to academic, public, and school libraries worldwide via subscription or one-time purchase of perpetual rights. No special setup or software is required—all you need is an internet browser.