Light Up

For most of the 20th Century, LGBTQ+ people across most of the world were focused either on survival or on working towards accessing the basic rights enjoyed by other people. There was too much work to be done – and, where opportunity presented itself, too much long-suppressed joy to be experienced – for it to occur to many people to record that work. Only relatively recently have the histories of these communities and movements begun to be captured in earnest. For LGBTQ+ people of colour, that process has been still further delayed, especially in more expensive, less accessible media like film.

Setting out to redress that imbalance, Ryan Ashley Lowery’s documentary centres on Atlanta Fashion Week, taking the opportunity to record personal stories from a community built by and around Black gay men and trans women. It follows five individuals who present a snapshot of life over the past half century in one of the most marginalised sectors of US society, but it isn’t just a tale of suffering and struggle. Lowery’s thesis, well borne out by what we see, is that when people find the courage to come out and be their whole selves, their lives and those of the people around them light up.

A couple of these people may already be familiar faces. The cerise-haired Simone Tisci has appeared on Legendary and in Lovecraft Country, whilst the joyously glamorous Derek Jae was a popular supporting character in Real Housewives Of Atlanta. Octavius was also famous in his time – dissuaded from participating in team sports by the all too common homophobic culture there. he became a runner, and ended up representing the US internationally. Now he is something of a local legend for his fabulous suits. Ben was once well known as a homophobic hate preacher before he confessed the truth about his own sexuality and started working for change. Obio has lived a quieter life, but has always been a perfectionist, believing that, if he excelled at everything he did, then people who learned he was gay would find a way to reconcile it, so he could avoid harm.

Though some discussion of celebrity is unavoidable, what Lowery is really interested in is the human story that each of these people has to tell. Viewers should be aware that these include stories about child abuse, though these are sensitively handled. They also take in the strangeness of discovering that spontaneously developed romantic feelings for friends were deemed wrong, and the experience of various forms of bullying. Simone seems to have led something of a charmed life despite having the odds stacked against her early on. Fostered at an early age by a woman who dressed her as a doll, helping her to understand who she was, she went on to leave her small Nebraska hometown for the big city and found her way into vogueing. She recalls the grandmother who always supported her and celebrates the house mother and siblings who are there for her now.

Family is an important theme. Ben is grateful for parents who did their best despite noticing that he was different, despite being afraid for him. Derek recalls a lesbian sister who was out and proud and took no shit from anybody. Obio has a delightfully understated coming out story. Where wider society is concerned, they talk about the similar sense of precarity associated with being Black and being queer. Emphasising this, the interviews are interspersed with clips of homophobic Black preachers; clips about murdered gay men and trans women. But there are also stories about first love. The trick, they say, is in learning to live one’s truth and stop caring.

“Call me he/she/they/them. Whatever,” says Derek. “Just call me.”