We Live Here: The Midwest
We Live Here: The Midwest is one of those documentaries that you just know is going to cause pain. As discrimination picks up against the LGBTQ community around the globe, the need for storytelling like this has never been more important. We Live Here follows the lives of several queer families living in the Midwest of the United States, just trying to survive in a political and social climate that seems intent on taking them down.
All of the people depicted in this documentary are ordinary Americans who desire love, happiness, and their version of the American Dream. They love their spouses, they love their kids, and they’re out here doing their best to make a go of this thing we call life.
The polarized political views unfolding in the United States make living in a traditionally conservative part of the country challenging to say the least. But they’re here to show you that their lives aren’t so different from yours, that their hopes and dreams probably look a lot like yours do.
Meet the brave and wonderful souls of We Live Here: The Midwest as they open up about life as a queer person in Midwestern America.
Nia and Katie
Nia and Katie got married just after college and began a family together, but Nia’s gender dysmorphia had always been there, under the surface. They were well into their adult lives when Nia came out to Katie. Both raised in the church in Des Moines, Iowa, a lot of their adult community was built around church and church-based activities as well.
In We Live Here, Nia and Katie both talk about the love and ease with which all their kids just accepted Nia’s transition, but the same could not be said for their extended church community. At the time, Katie was preaching at their church, which was a non-denominational evangelical church that, at the end of the day, regards homosexuality as a sin.
Katie talks passionately about her love for her church community, and just how desperately she misses it since Nia’s coming out. She says sadly that it hurts her that her unconditional love for Nia is what ended up being the reason her relationship with the church doesn’t exist anymore. But Nia is her life, end of story.
That wasn’t the only thing that they lost on their journey.
When Nia came out to her family, she felt it went well. But as time went on and folks had time to process and think about it all, the state of their relationship deteriorated. Nia no longer speaks with her parents or her sister, but does have contact with her brother. The discussions upon which the breakdown of their relationships seemed to be based were shrouded in religion.
“We’re not seen as human. As people who have lives and kids. We’re an issue currently and it’s hard,” says Nia when talking about their desire to leave Iowa and the Midwest completely.
“How do we make people see that these are our lives people are talking about? They’re not issues.”
Mario and Monte
Mario and Monte have had mixed experiences living as a Black gay couple in the Midwest. They’re raising a daughter, which they had via surrogacy, and making it work, but it hasn’t all been a bed of roses for them.
They met at church in Colorado when they were younger and hid their relationship and their happiness from everyone except their really close people for a long time, fearing backlash from the community. When the church found out they were married, they were asked to stop contributing to the community and their pastor tried to convince them to get an annulment. Of course, they didn’t get the annulment, and they’re still happily married. They are no longer active members of the congregation.
Mario joined the Air Force and they were posted in Nebraska. Despite their initial fears about discrimination from the community, they report only good things about living in Nebraska and their neighborhood. They’ve made friends and found safety there. They say in We Live Here that they’re waiting for the other shoe to drop, that they’re waiting for something bad to come along and derail the lives they’ve built for themselves because of the political climate in the Midwest at the moment.
Courtney and Denise
Courtney and Denise live on property in Kansas with their teenage son. While their story isn’t so much centered on the discrimination they have faced within their rural Midwestern community, it does focus on the issues their son has encountered being the child of two female parents.
He was severely bullied when he was first placed in public school. When Courtney and Denise approached the school about these behaviors, the school wouldn’t intervene and do their part to protect him. They took him out of public school and enrolled him at a virtual school and they never looked back.
“The Midwestern culture has an overall resistance to change and altering the mentality of what defines a nuclear family. We are just people living in a community. And if we’re good people, we’re good people. And there’s nothing different about who we are. We’re just two parents and a child, growing up in the Midwest,” says Denise.
While they seem happy enough with the insular life they’ve built for their family, it’s clear from We Live Here, that their choice to remain in Kansas is not without struggle, just because they’re queer.
Russ and Mark
Mark and Russ live in Oak Harbor where Russ teaches at the local high school. A figurehead in that community for twenty-six years, Russ’s students are well aware of his sexual identity. It’s a good thing, though, as it seems to have served to create a safe and welcoming space for LGBTQ students at the school where they might otherwise not have one.
He runs an LGBTQ group at the school where queer kids can gather, learn about themselves, talk about their experiences, and find community. Something which, for LGBTQ people, is lacking in the Midwestern parts of the United States.
In this section of the film, we meet several LGBTQ students from his school who report having experienced some form of discrimination within their small-town Ohio community. The struggles these kids experience just for being who they are and trying to live an authentic life can be difficult to watch, but like all the other stories in We Live Here, they are so important.
Russ talks about his position at the school assuming a role of representation for the queer kids in the community, and the impact this had on their time at school and growing up queer in Oak Harbor.
Representation matters. Now and always.
Rep. Heather Keeler
Heather Keeler is an indigenous queer woman working at the grassroots level to change the state of things for queer people in Minnesota. Keeler and her coworkers are working in politics because they’re tired of seeing people like themselves treated so poorly. She wants to be able to look her kids in the eye and say that she did everything in her power to make this world a better place for future generations.
She believes that the introduction of marriage equality laws did a lot for the community, but the acceptance of queer families still has a long way to go. She understands that educating the next generation of kids about what acceptable families look like starts in schools and that educational spaces are where real change occurs.
Jenn and Deb
Jenn and Deb met online after they both transitioned. Before transitioning, Jenn was married and had two children, but ended up needing to leave them behind for a short while during the transition process. Her daughters are in the documentary and speak very candidly about how the process impacted their lives, and for quite some time, there was no harmony within their family.
The kids have done a lot of work to open their minds and understand Jenn though, and now have a relationship with her again. They’ve accepted Deb as Jenn’s legally married wife and are working on establishing a new kind of family dynamic.
Deb is now estranged from her children, who she describes as wildly transphobic. One of her sons reportedly told their mother that they would kill Deb if he ever got the opportunity.
A harrowing reality for so many.
All of the people in We Live Here have vastly unique and different experiences living as a queer person in the Midwest. What unites them though is their shared desire to exist, to love and be loved, and just to be able to live their lives safely and happily. We Live Here is an outstanding piece of advocacy that is clearly designed to educate.
Depicting these people – regular Midwestern people – going about their lives, attempting to overcome adversities placed upon them by their communities around them is how change happens. Many of these families and individuals live in communities that are largely unsafe for LGBTQ people, and their bravery in sharing their stories is commendable.
As more documentaries depicting the ordinary lives of queer people pop up, the message is louder than ever: we are here, we are queer, and we just want to live our lives.
At the heart and soul of We Live Here is the idea that queer people are just people, and they deserve the right to live their lives in the way they choose safely and happily. This documentary is a must-watch for all.
We Live Here: The Midwest is available to stream on Hulu in the United States now. The documentary is also enjoying limited release in various places around the globe on Disney+. Follow us on X and Instagram for all queer stuff!
