Showtime Documentaries to Salute Gay Pride Month Tonight, 6/7

In honor of June, Gay Pride Month, SHOWTIME airs three provocative and compelling documentaries focusing on issues affecting the LGBT community. All three films air tonight, June 7 beginning at 7 PM ET/PT on SHOWTIME. Below is the schedule of films:

ORCHIDS: MY INTERSEX ADVENTURE

Premieres June 7, 2012 at 7 p.m.

Gen X filmmaker Phoebe Hart always knew she was different growing up - but she didn't know why. In this US TV premiere, Phoebe embarks on a road trip of discovery as an intersex person, (a group of conditions formerly termed "hermaphroditism"), with her intersex sister. Learning only in her teen years that she was born with 46XY (male) chromosomes, she documents this often shameful syndrome's effect on her family and the stories of others affected by intersex condition. With help from her sister Bonnie (also born with the same condition) and support from partner James, Hart drives across Australia, interviewing individuals whose struggles and victories mirror and differ from her own. Some advocate systemic change thus ending shame and controversial genital surgeries, while others debate coming out or staying closeted with a stigmatized secret. Questioning constructs of gender, sexuality and normality, often with lively good humor, ORCHIDS is among the first films to look at intersex from a positive perspective. Its engaging portrait of survival, courage and reconciliation speaks to a variety of audiences and sparks lively discussion about what it means to be perceived as "different."

NO LOOK PASS

Premieres June 7, 2012 at 8 p.m.

Right on the heels of Lin-sanity, is the coming-of-age story of his friend, Emily Tay, a first generation Asian immigrant from Los Angeles, who in this US TV premiere, plays for Harvard's basketball team and is living a double life, hiding her homosexuality from her parents. On the court, Emilyranks Top 25 in assists nationally, thanks to her signature move, the "no look pass," but she struggles to become a leader as team captain, and not just a star. Off the court, Emily struggles between respecting her mother, who plans to arrange Emily's marriage against her wishes, and respecting her true self as a gay woman involved with a university cheerleader.

ULTRASUEDE: IN SEARCH OF HALSTON

Premieres June 7, 2012 at 9:30 p.m.

The life and times of Halston, (aka Roy Halston Frowick) our country's first celebrity designer, are fabulously reconstructed in this Tribeca Film Festival selection. Halston was propelled out of obscurity by creating the pillbox hat that Jacqueline Kennedy wore to her husband's inauguration, and launched his own line of clothing in the disco era with clients such as Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minnelli, Betty Ford, and Lauren Bacall. Two years in the making, this documentary includes a wide array of celebrity interviews and never-before-seen footage as it recounts his rise to fame and fortune during the '70s.

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Photo credit: Bill King