Monday, July 16, 2018

Logo to Premiere 'Light in the Water' Documentary About Gay Swim Team

 

Next week, the three-time Emmy Award-winning Logo Documentary Films will be airing the first film in their upcoming doc slate: Light in the Water. The film reveals the untold story of a group of gay men and women who found one another through their love of competitive swimming, ultimately becoming a family and a force for the LGBTQ sports movement. 

The West Hollywood Aquatics Team – who also go by “WH2O” - were pioneers in gay sports. With a current roster of more than 180 individuals, the organization initially grew out of a group of athletes training for the first Gay Games in 1982. During a time when being gay and being an athlete was considered an oxymoron and the AIDS crisis only increased homophobia across the U.S., WH2O prioritized inclusion and dignity and combated stigma.

As one of the original members states, “if you could swim, you could live…or at least you were alive for that moment.” And another: “swimming was about celebrating and rising above all the darkness that was around us…and striving to show the word that we are not being wiped out by an illness.”