From the restrictive Hays Code that constructed a celluloid closet, to the queer indie explosion of the mid-90s, to our contemporary conversations about representation, both independent and mainstream cinema have struggled with the way they portray LGBTQ2S people and stories. And while representation has obviously bettered over the last century of cinema, the question now turns to what queer stories get told. Queerwest celebrates not only the stories of queer life on the coasts, but the lives, adventures, and pain of LGBTQ2S people living under the majesty, power, and complicated history of the American West. 


Though it was developed as an exploitation film meant to capitalize on popular interest in Christine Jorgensen’s transition, then a tabloid sensation, Ed Wood’s Glen or Glenda? is, for its time, an astonishingly sympathetic portrayal of cross-dressing and gender nonconformity. Nominally resembling an educational reel, the film relates the stories of Glen, who struggles to tell his fiancée that he covets her angora sweaters, and a GI who undergoes reassignment surgery, but Wood conveys this narrative in a style bizarre beyond measure.


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