Queer Family Tree: Ashley

Queer Family Tree is a series of short documentary portraits from filmmaker Tay Barrett, each one a conversation with a single member of the queer community about the path that led them to self-acceptance and self-love. In this installment, Barrett sits down with Ashley. The questions are the ones Barrett asks everyone, and they are deceptively simple: how did you come to understand your identity, what did you like about it, what was hard, and what would you tell your younger self. The answers, in Ashley's own words, trace a personal history of discovery, doubt and eventual pride. Barrett has described the project as the kind of representation she wishes she had seen when she was younger, a way of showing that queer lives are not only survivable but joyful. Brief and unadorned, the film is an invitation to listen closely to one person's story and to recognize pieces of your own in it.