History is never just the past—it lives in the people who preserve it, challenge it and insist on telling the truth.

A Bronx boxer and military veteran finds community in leather, redefining strength and masculinity on his own terms. The legacy of a freak parade accident reveals how Shelly’s Leg became one of the nation’s first openly gay spaces. As anti-trans legislation sweeps the country, trans and nonbinary hockey players create a new home—and solidarity—on the ice. A Japanese American immigrant, single mother and electrologist becomes a trusted source of gender-affirming care for generations of transgender women. And Black gay men living with HIV reclaim the South through storytelling, art and ancestral memory. Together, these five documentaries honor complicated histories and the power of living—and speaking—our truths.