GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. — In a new documentary called, "We Live Here: The Midwest," Debb and Jenn Richmond are featured as one of five LGBTQIA+ families who live in and love the Midwest.
The West St. Paul couple said the filmmakers came out to shoot their story March of 2022. Debb, who is into professional photography, is usually behind the camera. So when the documentarians finally invited her and Jenn to the Hollywood premiere, she said she felt sheepish.
"Being out in Hollywood was not planned for me," Debb said. "When we had this filmed in March of 2022, we quickly forgot about it, I mean it's ok, yay, they took our pictures and stuff."
With "We Live Here: The Midwest" streaming nationally starting Wednesday, the couple had to get comfortable with the idea that their story was out of their hands.
"There was always a concern that if you do a documentary like this and you hear tales out there of people with good intentions that take a documentary like that, and twist it around and have it play to the opposite side of the spectrum," Jenn explained. "It was really nice once we did get a chance to watch it because it was spun in a very caring and loving way."
Director Melinda Maerker and producer David Miller said the process to get the families to trust their process was a difficult one.
"Eventually when we did find our families, a few were very hesitant to participate and didn't," Maerker said. "They were afraid of recriminations in their communities, and at work."
"It's a real fear that these families have and still have today," Miller added.
After 2016, the duo said they wanted to check in on families in the Midwest.
"We picked the Midwest specifically because it is the heartland and the heart of family values which have been co-opted by the right," Maerker said.
And the key answer to that very question of why do families like the Richmonds live here? It's part common sense, and part sensitive to the political climate.
"You know, I would love to be somewhere warm, where, like Debb said, we can ride our motorcycles and be in a warmer climate," Jenn said. "But the political atmosphere is really good, we have protected rights under a lot of civil liberties like that. You don't get in other parts of the country."
"If I was a kid, if I had the guts in the first place to say, 'Hey parents I'm not this, I'm that,' I would want to be in a place where they can be supported if they chose to be," Debb said. "And where they can get that support. And this is that place."
That sentiment, echoing through streaming without state boundaries, the Richmonds have one message.
"I think there's plenty of people out there who are on our side but they just don't understand, or they don't have a connection to the community, so they don't take the effort to expound and go out and seek somebody that is LGBTQ identified," Jenn said. "I think it's important to have somebody in your corner."
"I wouldn't mind if people just saw me as just another weirdo, just like everybody else, we are just like everybody else," Debb said. "And we belong here just a much as anybody else does. We're not out to get someone, and I hope other people won't be out to get us."
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