LGBT documentary to premiere in Collingswood

Two characters serve as emotional bookends to “The Pursuit: 50 Years in the Fight for LGBT Rights,’’ a documentary airing soon on WHYY-TV 12 in Philadelphia.

One is a young lesbian who spends time assisting in a head count of homeless youth on the streets of Philadelphia, who still feels she must trade sex for a “safe’’ place to sleep.

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The other is a resident of John C. Anderson Apartments, Philadelphia’s first gay senior housing community. He confides he missed the boat on many of the opportunities afforded younger LGBT people – dating openly, being accepted by peers and coworkers, raising a family. He has regrets, he says, but he also expresses gratitude for having lived long enough to witness such seismic changes as legalized same-sex marriage and HIV drugs that mean AIDS is no longer a certain death sentence.

Together, the young woman and senior citizen represent how far the LBGT community has come, and how far society still has to go.

Produced and directed by Ilana Trachtman, “The Pursuit’’ will be previewed in a community screening Tuesday at 7 p.m. at Perkins Center for the Arts in Collingswood. The documentary, which was filmed in Philadelphia; Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania; Baltimore, and Provincetown, Massachusetts, also will be screened in Philadelphia, Wilmington, Lambertville and elsewhere.

It will air on WHYY on June 23 at 9 p.m.

“What was it like to be gay 50 years ago?’’ asks Rita Adessa, retired executive director of the Philadelphia Lesbian and Gay Task Force. “It was being hidden, in plain sight.’’

IN AND OUT

Homosexuality as a mental disorder wasn’t removed as a designation by the American Psychiatric Association until 1974.

Being “out’’ often meant running away from home, being beaten by family members, getting ejected from one’s church. It might mean sleeping on the streets, dangerous relationships or losing the means to earn a living.

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Leaving the closet meant other doors would slam shut. And sadly, the only exit was found through drugs, disease, alcoholism, suicide.

Lillian Faderman, a prominent feminist scholar, frames it this way: “As far as the law was concerned, they were criminals. As far as the government was concerned they were subversives. As far as the church was concerned, they were sinners. As far as the psychiatric profession was concerned, they were crazies.’’

The impetus for the documentary was the 50th anniversary on July 4, 2015, of the gay rights protests in front of Independence Hall, which were credited with inspiring the movement including the 1969 Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village.

“I wish I could say it as my idea,’’ says the filmmaker, who was selected by WHYY to make a documentary following last summer’s celebration. The film was commissioned, in part, by the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage to commemorate the 50th anniversary.

Trachtman says while deciding how to approach the project, she experienced a real wake-up call.

“When I thought about the history, it was hard for me to even imagine a time when what we think of as gay rights was so vastly different, a time when someone who we now identify as LGBT was persecuted. And that’s not a vague, euphemistic term. It was illegal, they were hurt or killed. To be out and gay was to live outside of society, to live outside of one’s family. To choose to live openly … was to sacrifice the luxury of what we think of as living in America.’’

But a mere retelling of historical milestones “did not seem like it would do it justice,’’ she says. “It was important to me to that we hear it from the people who lived it.’’

IN THEIR OWN WORDS

The political becomes personal. History is illuminated through the stories of four surviving protestors and many others – identical twin cops, one brother gay and one straight; a trans woman and her wife and their teenage sons; a rookie police officer not yet out to his peers; a senior gay couple together 38 years before getting married while on film, witnessed by close friends from that LGBT senior community.

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“I wanted to look at the present,’’ says Trachtman, “so we could see how far we’ve come and how far we still have to go. There are kids who are still getting kicked out of their homes because they came out. I was trying to make it as powerful and as palpable as possible, to make the issues real.’’

There are moments of great triumph – dozens of smiling couples tying the knot in moments Trachtman sets against the musical backdrop of Etta James’ “At Last.’’

And moments of heartbreak, as so many “men of a certain age’’ speak bluntly about friends lost to AIDS.

There is no overstating the carnage. It wasn’t unusual for someone to lose 40 or 50 friends to the disease.

“They have survived the trauma of having buried all their peers, in some cases, a funeral a week,’’ Trachtman says.

TRAGEDY AND CHANGE

AIDS is credited by those in the film with waking Americans up to the rights and needs of gay people. Yet, there was a second wave of crisis, as gay men who say they never thought they would have a future didn’t save for one.

Those lucky enough to have found themselves in the Anderson housing complex say they’ve finally found their home.

“Intimacy has become perhaps more important than sexuality,’’ says one resident. “We’re in a community that’s finally able to be itself.’’

These seniors lived long enough to see Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, instated in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, repealed in 2010 by President Barak Obama.

They also watched Clinton sign the Defense of Marriage Act in 1993, and the state of Massachusetts issue the first gay marriage license in 2005, 10 years before marrying the partner of your choice become the law of the land.

Asked what surprised her while making the film, Trachtman says she was struck by the sheer number of homeless LGBT youth she encountered. This, she says, is an issue that America still needs to address.

“These kids stand for thousands of kids in places like New York and San Francisco,’’ she says. “Forty percent of homeless youth are LGBT.’’

She was gratified her research led her to trans men and women who serve not just as good role models but top leaders in their communities and workplaces.

COMMUNITY CONVERSATION

Karen Chigounis, interim executive director of Perkins Center for the Arts, jumped at the chance to host an advanced screening location for the film.

“It’s part of the conversations we need to be having as a community,’’ says Chigounis. “The gay community supports us. It IS us. I look at our tiny group at our own center, and out of eight full-time people, two are happily married gay and lesbian people.

“We’d be so much less without each other. This is history that needs to be told. We need to celebrate those who fought a much harder fight, and who keep it moving forward,’’ she observes. “We need to celebrate the hard fights.’’

“When all voices aren’t there, when everyone isn’t at the table, we are all so much less.’’

Trachtman is touched how quickly the Philly gay community embraced her and supported the project.

“I was really surprised by peoples’ openness. As soon as word got out, I was greeted with such open arms and such honesty in a way that I can’t say that I’ve experienced in making other films. And I haven’t been doing whistle-blower films or anything … It was just something … where people felt their largest stories hadn’t been told,’’ she says. “

And it is those voices, those stories that will continue to inspire change, she says, at a time when America is divided over issues such as transgender people using gender-specific restrooms.

“On the one hand, the fact that we are having these debates right now is astounding, but on the other hand, the fact that we are having them in public at all is testimony to how far we have actually come.’’

“Social change comes from compassion,’’ says Trachtman, “and compassion comes from hearing people’s stories well told.’’

IF YOU GO

A preview screening of “The Pursuit: 50 Years in the Fight for LGBT Rights’’ will be offered 7 p.m. Tuesday at Perkins Center for the Arts, 30 Irvin Ave., Collingswood. Visit eventbrite.com/e/advanced-screening-of-the-pursuit-50-years-in-the-fight-for-lgbt-rights-tickets-25212912500

“The Pursuit’’ will air on WHYY-TV Channel 12 on June 23 at 9 p.m. Visit whyy.org and pcah.us/grants/9824_the_pursuit_50_years_in_the_fight_for_lgbt_rights