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PBS Wisconsin “Voices” adds LGBTQ+ collection
June 7, 2023 Leave a Comment
To celebrate Pride and uplift LGBTQ+ communities every day, PBS Wisconsin has added a brand new LGBTQ+ Stories collection to our Voices project.
Voices includes six digital content collections of PBS Wisconsin streaming programming and resources curated to reflect diverse lived experiences at the intersections of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and religious pluralism.
In April, we launched our Muslim Voices collection as part of the Wisconsin Muslim Project and, this June, in tandem with the premiere of Wisconsin Pride — our new documentary on Wisconsin’s LGBTQ+ history — we offer more than 130 pieces of digital content through LGBTQ+ Voices.
Selections come from trusted PBS sources like NewsHour, POV, Independent Lens and American Masters. Programs made in Wisconsin showcase episodes and clips from Wisconsin Life, University Place, Here & Now and more. They can all be watched online and are available to stream on the free PBS App on all streaming devices.
LGBTQ+ Voices also highlights educational and classroom learning media for teachers and caregivers, collected in this comprehensive listing of LGBTQ+ resources compiled by our PBS Wisconsin Education team.
Brave Spaces from PBS Digital Studios
To highlight just a few of our favorite selections found in the collection, brand new from PBS Digital Studios is Brave Spaces. Hosted by Devin-Norelle, the show explores LGBTQ+ stories of triumph, transformation, celebration and love that endure in the face of Queer exclusion. The premiere episode covers how the Gray Wills Book Club in Buffalo, New York counters book banning efforts proliferating across the nation and promotes literacies to combat Black and Queer oppression.
Wisconsin Pride
Streaming now, produced by PBS Wisconsin in a groundbreaking collaboration with the Wisconsin Historical Society, Wisconsin Pride is a two-hour documentary reconsidering our state’s history framed by the stories of LGBTQ+ Wisconsinites and the movement for gay civil rights they helped catalyze across the nation. Stream the full documentary in its two comprehensive parts, or enjoy it through segmented viewing of its various chapters and vignettes, like this one about how organizing for LGBTQ+ rights in Wisconsin in the 1970’s and 1980’s led to a series of laws extending civil rights to gays and lesbians for the first time in U.S. history.
Wisconsin Life: “Mechanic Shop Femme”
Explore this portrait from PBS Wisconsin’s Wisconsin Life of Chaya Milchtein, a former auto repair shop worker, consumer auto expert, writer and educator who weaves queer identity, fashion and personal empowerment into her online platform, Mechanic Shoppe Femme. Milchtein’s work has been featured in The New York Times, O Magazine, Consumer Reports, and The Advocate.
Subcultured: “Gay Rodeo”
Subcultured from PBS Digital Studios introduces us to Gay Rodeo, borne of the 1970s and sustained in various places throughout the United States since then. This episode from 2021 flips our ideas about the rodeo on their head, and shows how queer identifying people have forged community amid cultures coded as masculine and cisgender.
Frontline: “Growing Up Trans”
This remarkable portrait, produced by Frontline in 2015, profiles the struggles and choices facing transgender kids and their families. It provides important context for us, eight years later, as transgender youth are placed in the center of our national debates over transgender rights, dignity and health.
We hope you’ll take time to explore all of the PBS Wisconsin LGBTQ+ Voices collection during Pride and throughout the year as we promote stories documenting ongoing LGBTQ+ struggles for human and civil rights, and celebrating diversity in gender identity and sexual orientation integral to human flourishing.
