WTTW recently released its schedule of special programming in celebration of LGBTQ Pride Month. Highlights include:
True Colors: LGBTQ+ Our Stories, Our Songs (NEW)
Wed., June 8 at 9:30 pm
Offering a unique look at the history of the LGBTQ+ community in the United States, this special shares real-life stories of hope, resilience, and triumph. Award-winning artist and author Harvey Fierstein hosts the documentary segments with performances by Indigo Girls, country-pop singer Billy Gilman, Glee sensation Chris Colfer, performer André de Shields, and more.
- POV Shorts: Dreaming Life (NEW)
Tuesday, June 14 from 10:30-11:00 pm
Two stories of self-acceptance and finding joy. Another Hayride: As the AIDS epidemic took hold in the early 1980s, self-help guru Louise Hay created a space for healing called the Hayride. To the Future, With Love: Meet 19-year-old Hunter "Pixel" Jimenez, a nonbinary trans boy caught between the expectations of his Guatemalan immigrant family and his dreams of living happily ever after.
- Queer Silicon Valley (NEW)
Thursday, June 16 from 10:00-11:00 pm (also Sunday, June 12 from 10:30-11:30 pm on WTTW Prime 11.2)
Silicon Valley, known as the high-tech capital of the world, has had a profound impact on the LGBTQ+ movement in the United States. From its early beginnings in a 1970s vibrant bar scene through the challenges posed by AIDS and the religious right, the fight for political representation and marriage equality, to what it was like to come out in the high tech industry, Queer Silicon Valley casts a fresh lens on a not well-known but significant history
- It's A Match! (NEW)
Thursday, June 23 from 10:00-11:00 pm
This film tells the story of Alana and Lori - two LGBT 20-somethings looking for love online when a casual right swipe made a match that would bind them together forever. Within a few weeks of meeting, Lori learned that Alana has been on a waitlist for years to receive a life-saving kidney transplant. Against all odds, Lori learns she is a candidate for donation and decides to give Alana the ultimate gift.
- Go Figure: The Randy Gardner Story (NEW)
Sunday, June 26 from 2:30-3:30 pm (also 10:30-11:30 pm on WTTW Prime 11.2)
This documentary intimately documents the life and career of two-time Olympian Randy Gardner. Together with his Olympic partner Tai Babilonia, they formed an iconic figure skating pairs team. The film shares one man's quest to finally come to terms with his true identity so that he can be a light to others.
- Out in Rural America
Sunday, June 26 from 3:30-4:30 pm
This film explores the struggles and joys of being lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, and genderqueer in smalltown Midwestern America, through five stories from the LGBTQ+ community over six years.
- Prideland
Sunday, June 26 from 4:30-5:30 pm
Follow queer actor Dyllon Burnside on a journey across the South to meet diverse members of the LGBTQ community. From a lesbian rodeo champ in Texas to an African American mayor ally in Alabama, he discovers how LGBTQ Americans are finding ways to live authentically and with Pride in the modern South.
- Independent Lens: Cured
Thursday, June 30 at 10:00 pm
When homosexuality was considered a mental illness to be "cured," renegade LGBTQ+ activists fought a powerful psychiatry establishment that had things dangerously backward.
In addition, a number of special Pride Month programs will air on WTTW Prime:
-Penny: Champion of the Marginalized
Sunday, June 12 at 11:30 pm
- Out in Rural America
Saturday, June 25 at 10:00 am
- Prideland
Saturday, June 25 at 11:00 am
- POV Shorts: Becoming Myself (NEW)
Sunday, June 26 at 11:30 pm
Watch these programs on television, through the PBS video app and online at wttw.com/watch.
WTTW is the PBS member station in Chicago, committed to creating and presenting unique media content across distinct television and digital channels — WTTW, WTTW Prime, WTTW Create, WTTW World, WTTW PBS Kids 24/7, wttw.com, and the PBS/WTTW video app. Recognized for award-winning journalism and local productions — such as Chicago Tonight; Chicago by 'L'; Check, Please!; digital-first series FIRSTHAND, Urban Nature and Foodphiles; and national productions 10 That Changed America and Nature Cat — WTTW presents the very best in public affairs, arts and culture, nature and science, history and documentary, and children's public media content. Connect with WTTW on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
