As families gather together this holiday season, Hulu shines a spotlight on six Midwestern families whose traditional gatherings look a little different after coming out as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. We Live Here: The Midwest is an hour-long special that feels like the start of a regional series about the shared experience of being queer and how geography impacts that experience. A diverse mix of stories showcases how the LGBTQIA+ community often finds support from chosen families rather than blood relatives, the variety of outcomes that follow the decision to come out of the closet, and an optimistic message that it gets better without feeling preachy.
(David Clayton Miller/Hulu)
Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Ohio, and Minnesota are the six states featured in the special, zooming in on each to meet a different family. The documentary is bookended by two transgender stories, starting in Iowa with Nia, whose marriage and parental relationship with her children stayed intact after coming out. That halcyonic story is countered by the last family featured, Jenn and Debb from Minnesota, who experienced varying degrees of excommunication before finding their life together.
In Nebraska, we meet Mario and Monte, a married couple who are double minorities in their community as Black and gay men, learning about what they had to give up in order to start their family. Kansas is home to Courtney and Denise, a married Lesbian couple raising goats on a farm while homeschooling their son, who faced bullying by virtue of who his parents are. In Ohio, we meet Russ, a music teacher who doesn’t hide his husband, Mark, and also helps queer students at his school by leading a resource group. As a bonus, we also meet Minnesota Representative Heather Keeler, an Indigenous Queer woman who is fighting for legislation that protects queer families in her state.
We Live Here: The Midwest weaves together a quilt of stories that showcase how families come in all shapes and sizes. Its impact is akin to the final scene of Mrs. Doubtfire, when Daniel Hillard (Robin Williams), in drag as the title character on his TV show, breaks the fourth wall and tells his audience of children that families come in all shapes and sizes, but what they all have is love. “If there’s love, dear, those are the ties that bind.”
The documentary manages to deliver its stories without an overbearing message other than the fact that each of the families featured wants what any family would: legal protection to remain a family and to live life without persecution. Through Heather Keeler’s brief segment, a reminder is delivered that although we’ve come so far, we still have far to go.
Premiering on Hulu on Tuesday, December 6th, We Live Here: The Midwest is sure to make a lot of queer people feel seen through these six diverse stories. But more importantly, it’s easily accessible by viewers who may be curious about life as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. It answers a lot of questions that people may be afraid to ask. And while the stories are specific to the Midwest, I found them to be quite universal, a fact I hope is proven by future installments of this documentary.