Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival 2009

It’s been said, “Gays have a past but no history.” SWIMMING WITH LESBIANS explores this past, featuring 68-year-old archivist Madeline Davis, who is herself a legend: In 1971, she wrote and recorded the gay anthem, “Stonewall Nation.” The following year, Davis was the first open lesbian delegate to speak at the Democratic National Convention. She taught the first course on lesbianism at a major American university and, in 1995, hers was the first same-sex Jewish marriage in Buffalo. She co-authored “Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold: The History of a Lesbian Community,” whose voices inspired this film. This compelling documentary portrays the passionate determination and personal stories of transgender women, drag queens, and Davis’s friends, a magnificent portrait of over 50 years of the gay civil rights movement, filled with joy, sadness, and courage. As Madeline says, “We have to have the past or we can't have a future. You don't build a future out of nothing. You build the future out of where you've been." Spellbinding interviews provide a window into the preservation of Western New York’s GLBT history in this ageless cinema vérité documentary.

Copresented by Pacific Northwest Lesbian Archives