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OUTED

There is no overestimating the power of the documentary Word Is Out (1977).

It gave voice to gays and lesbians and showed who these strange people were. They were just like you and, especially, me.

Newly out, there was a huge relief behind my seeing this film. I probably saw it three or four times.

It is now being released in a restored edition with followup interviews.

Gay Identity Refracted in Multiple Voices

I remember the second time I saw it with an audience of all gay men and women and there was a discussion after the film. Questions for the few participants who were there and the director.

It was as powerful as the film itself to sit in a room with hundreds of other gay people and hear their reactions.

Up to this time, my exposure to the gay community had been quite closeted and clandestine.

They even turned up all the lights for the discussion! No dim bars. No covert behavior.

In all honesty, I had already had very positive experiences in joining with various gay rights groups. But this film opened it all up. When you are working on a march or a health agency for gay people you don't talk a lot about your own experience and relax behind your identity as a gay person. I was working on projects. There were goals.

Watching and discussing this film was a totally other experience.

We used to do a lot of this kind of thing at that time.

A book would come out and the authors would speak. There were events in gay bookstores, a thing that probably no longer exists at any significant level.

It was a great time and a difficult time.

This film opened a lot of minds and a lot of doors in the community and outside.

I will see it again. It isn't available on Netflix yet but I bet it will be.

Labels: gay history, gay life, gay rights