The North Carolina Gay & Lesbian Film Festival started at the Carolina Theatre in Durham on Friday, August 13 and will continue through Sunday, August 24th. This is the largest LGBT event of the year in the Triangle and draws 10,000 people. I saw one film on Saturday and will see another next Sunday. The audience primarily was middle-aged and white. I also watched a couple of LGBT films on Netflix last weekend. Rather than review specific films, I want to comment on LGBT films in general and how they have grown in the past two decades.

The NC Policy Watch Critical Conversations Forum on August 7th featured Chris Brook, Legal Director of the ACLU of North Carolina Legal Foundation, Jen Jones, Director of Communications and Outreach at Equality North Carolina, and Shawn Long, one of the plaintiffs in one of the court challenges to the North Carolina discrimination amendment One.

As the year comes to a close, and I’m looking back I’m also looking forward to a new year and a new opportunity for renewal. Christmas was always a family time, and I miss those connections, but their memories still warm me when I’m alone. Now I celebrate holidays with friends who sustain me through out the year. As I look back at the friendships I’ve had, I realize how much they have meant to me in enriching my life and accepting me when much of society rejected me.

I think it’s too easy to drift into sentimentality when thinking about friendship because it isn’t always wonderful. Friends can make demands on our time and expect more than we’re willing to give. We can argue and have disagreements with friends, but we always make up. If we don’t, and the friendship ends then it is a great loss for both of us.