‘Coming Out: A 50-year History’

PALM SPRINGS — The City of Palm Springs Human Rights Commission, in partnership with the LGBT Center of the Desert, invites the entire community to a special screening of the documentary film “Coming Out: A 50 Year History,” on Friday, March 22.

The 7 p.m. screening, emceed by Manny de la Rosa from NBC Palm Springs, will be held at the Palm Springs Cultural Center, 2300 E. Baristo Road. A VIP reception is slated for 5:30 p.m. with special guests, NBC Palm Springs weathercaster Brian Gallo and de la Rosa. In addition, the film’s producer Phil Siegel will be on hand to speak.

Proceeds from the “Coming Out …” screening will benefit the Human Rights Commission and the LGBT Center of the Desert. Tickets are $10 per person or $25 for the screening and reception.

The 57-minute “Coming Out …” film, narrated by transgender teen, Jazz Jennings, includes young people interviewing a host of LGBTQ elders who came out in different historical eras from the 1950s to today. These inspiring talks give insight into the political and personal changes that shaped the modern LGBTQ movement.

Watch a trailer of “Coming Out: A 50 Year History here:

The young interviewers get an opportunity to compare and contrast their “coming out” experience with people who came out during McCarthy, Civil Rights, post-Stonewall, and the AIDS era.

In the end, they learn that every generation of activism needs to continue even in the light of great social strides.

Subjects in “Coming Out: A 50-Year History, include the founder of the first lesbian organization in the USA; a ROTC student who was outed and dismissed during the height of the McCarthy era, a Rhodes scholar who was arrested in Russia for having sex in a hotel; a transgender activist who led one of the first anti-police riots, a small-town girl whose activism began in the heart of the 1960s women’s and anti-war movements; an activist who organized a group of young hustlers to march for change; a lesbian-feminist poet of the 1970s; a man whose politics began in discos and ended in the AIDS era; an ACT-UP activist; a man who changed views of people with AIDS in the Black churches of the South; and a young lesbian whose worldview was forever changed at the first national march on Washington DC in 1987.

To purchase tickets, click here.

The Palm Springs Human Rights Commission is a nine-member commission of volunteer citizens, appointed by the City Council for three-year terms. It meets at 3 p.m. on the second Monday each month at City Hall. Public comment is welcome. For more information, click here.