BY CAROLYN SZCZEPANSKI
“I knew I was gay when the most exciting part of my Bar Mitzvah was meeting with the party planner.” — Howard Bragman, public relations executive“When I was six I loved my first grade teacher so much I knew I would have to grow up to be a boy so I could come back and ask her to marry me.” — Tammy Lynn Etheridge, actress
In his 2005 book "When I Knew," author Robert Trachtenberg compiled the stories of famous and mainstream Americans retelling the moments they knew they were attracted to the same sex. Make-up artist Jeff Judd remembers, at seven years old, trying to crane his neck in such a way that he’d be able to peer under Tarzan’s loincloth while lounging in front of the TV. Comic Elvira Kurt recalls watching “The Trouble with Angles” for the umpteenth time and realizing what she wanted out of life: to be a bad girl who gets punished by Rosalind Russell.
Both witty and heartfelt, Trachtenberg’s compilation would be nearly impossible to match. But local filmmaker Lisa Marie Evans is taking a shot, adapting the idea to the big screen.
The first locally produced, original documentary created for the Kansas City Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, Evans’ “When Did You Know?” started with an idea she and festival director Jamie Rich had over lunch a few months ago. The two were discussing ways to get residents more involved in the annual event and landed on a concept inspired by Trachtenberg. The Tenth Voice, the weekly LGBT program on KKFI FM 90.1, had already started recording local individuals’ coming-out experiences. Over the past few weeks, Evans has been capturing those a-ha moments on camera.
On Tuesday night she was scrambling to get the film finished up. The final cut includes 26 interviews, with the music of local acts like the Ssion and Kristie Stremel.
“I was trying to stick more with when people knew, but what happened after that is always intriguing, as well,” she says. “So it’s anywhere from people’s parents kicking them out on the streets to little boys asking their moms what an erection was from the boy next door to kids talking about a different energy they felt.”
The realizations came as early as three years old and as late as 60, Evans says. Some were accepted by their families; one was placed in a mental hospital. As a filmmaker, she hopes the documentary will help the public understand that stereotypes sell short the diverse individuals that make up the LGBT community. She doesn’t make an appearance on screen, but Evans says it made her reflect on her own experience, too.
“They all talk about different ages when they started to know but the common theme is that they didn’t really have a name for it. I feel the same way. I didn’t do anything in the film, but had I been able to better define [being gay] at an earlier age, I’d have been all over it a lot earlier,” she says with a laugh.
Evans will sell copies of the DVD at the “When Did You Know?” screening at the Tivoli (4050 Westport) at 6 p.m. Thursday. Tickets cost $3, and a portion of the proceeds will be split between the musicians featured in the film and KKFI.
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