On a scale of one to 10, with one being “completely straight” and 10 being “completely gay,” what number are you?
The answer might seem obvious to some. “I’m a one, absolutely!” “I’m a 10, of course!” But “Between the Shades,” a documentary released Tuesday on iTunes, suggests that human sexuality is far more nuanced than labels or even a linear scale can capture.
Jill Salvino, the film’s director, created the documentary from more than 50 interviews with people representing a variety of sexual orientations, ages and races. The film includes parents and their adult children, singles and couples, and people who identify as gay, straight, lesbian, trans, intersex, queer and gender nonbinary.
Among those in the film who were asked the question, “How gay are you?” nobody answered one or 10. Most fell somewhere in between, although one person ignored the scale entirely.
“The film is about love, at the end of the day,” said Ms. Salvino, an Emmy-winning filmmaker who lives in New York. “It’s about what labels a life. It’s about how we think of ourselves, what we call ourselves, what other people call us and where we feel comfortable.”
Since watching the film, I’ve asked the question “How gay are you?” or “How straight are you?” to many of my friends, starting some interesting dinner conversations. But it’s a conversation that feels right for the times in which we live. In last fall’s midterm elections, more than 150 openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people were elected, more than in any previous election. And Pete Buttigieg, the openly gay mayor of South Bend, Ind., has emerged as a viable presidential candidate.
Yet even as communities are electing gay politicians, life remains challenging for young people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or many of the other labels people use to describe their orientation. According to the Trevor project, which provides crisis intervention services to L.G.B.T. youth, they are almost five times as likely to have attempted suicide compared to straight kids. A recent Human Rights Campaign report found that more than 40 percent of L.G.B.T. youth say their community is not accepting of gay people. And L.G.B.T. youth are twice as likely as their straight peers to say they’ve been assaulted.
Ms. Salvino said she began to think about the role the film might play in education when she was on the film festival circuit and was consistently asked about sharing the message with young people. “Every festival I attended, the first comment was to say, ‘How do we get it in the school system?’” she said. “There are kids growing up in small towns and large towns who may not know a lesbian or gay person and may not have a role model.”
Ms. Salvino partnered with a distributor, Passion River Films, and the film has since been licensed for use in more than 200 universities and public libraries. Ms. Salvino said she was particularly encouraged that many schools and libraries in the Midwest were making the film available. “Those often are the places that really need the understanding,” she said.
Andrew Tobias, a well-known author of investment guides as well as the memoir “The Best Little Boy in the World,” said he participated in the film because he believed it had the potential to “help open some hearts and minds.”
“When my generation was growing up, there were boys and girls, and anything other than that was very nervous-making and a big problem,” Mr. Tobias said. “What a lot of us have learned as we’ve grown older is that love is love, and people come in all kinds of variations, and most people are wonderful even if they aren’t exactly average or what used to be called normal.”
Parker Jordan, a Columbia University graduate student and co-founder of the School of Social Work’s Trans and Gender Non-Conforming Caucus, said his group is planning to hold a screening of the film soon.
“Identity is something that can take your whole lifetime to figure out,” he said. “It’s important that we have that conversation in every possible space. The documentary is providing important visibility and in a way inviting people to step into someone’s shoes and have this conversation.”
For parents struggling to talk to their kids about sexual identity, “Between the Shades” might be a good place to start. Despite its name, a play on the popular book and movie “50 Shades of Grey,” the film is not about sex and includes only passing references to sexual encounters. It consists of a variety of people simply telling their own stories and talking about growing up, coming out and living life somewhere on the spectrum of human sexuality.
Mr. Tobias said he believes films like “Between the Shades” should be required viewing for young people so students who are afraid to go on their own would have a chance to watch without judgment. “It might give some encouragement to young people who are worried that they don’t fit in,” he said. “It shows them that they can fit in, and it shows them that you don’t have to literally fit in to be loved and valued and have a good life.”
The people featured in the film are by no means a representative or random sample. Ms. Salvino found them in a variety of ways. Some responded to a Craigslist ad that sought people interested in talking about sexuality. Others were found through the film’s Facebook page. One couple came to Ms. Salvino’s attention because she sat behind them at an event at Carnegie Hall. She struck up a conversation and asked them if they would sit down for an interview. “People just came to me and even flew themselves in from California and Texas,” Ms. Salvino said. “People kept bringing me their stories.”
An intersex person, who presents as a woman, talks about the fact that when a baby is born with both male and female genitalia, doctors may assign one gender. (She was fortunate, she says, that her parents couldn’t afford medical intervention and allowed her to discover herself on her own terms.) A trans woman talks about wanting a relationship like the one her parents had. A mother sits in support of her adult son, who sports a beard while wearing a dress.
“People walk out of the movie and even if they never knew a trans person, they felt like they did,” Ms. Salvino said. “If they didn’t know a lesbian couple, they felt like they did. The parts may be different, but I don’t think the heart is.”