Emergence: Out of the Shadows tells three vital queer stories that each examine the unique struggles of coming out in a traditional South Asian household. The youngest and most vulnerable is Kayden, forced by an abusive home situation to leave India for Canada, ultimately finding hope through queer community. A different trajectory confronts Jag, a queer woman with understanding parents, who must carry the secret that her brother Harv is also gay. Meanwhile Amar, raised by a single mother, must overcome self-loathing and bullying on his way towards spiritual awakening and community activism.

Told in emotionally affecting interviews with the subjects and even, courageously, with some of their parents, these stories tell of the isolation and pressure that comes from an identity that breaks tradition, but also of the joy that comes from being one’s full self. They form a portrait of the South Asian gay experience that is affecting and uplifting in both its discussion of underexamined intersectionality and the celebration it finds in family—the one we’re born into and also the one we choose.