The Midwest Releases Emotional Trailer

Hulu has unveiled the trailer and key art for their upcoming documentary We Live Here: The Midwest. Centered on LGBTQI+ members who live in America’s Heartland, the documentary follows different families facing complex challenges just because of who they are. The documentary is presented during a tumultuous time in the United States for members of the LGBTQI+ community: in the last few years, a record number of bills attacking their rights, especially for transgender people, have passed. As the emotional trailer conveys, 2016 proved to be a detrimental year for America’s LGBTQI+ population. Check it out below.

All the families featured in We Live Here: The Midwest strive to build lives in their communities despite biased legislation and mounting prejudice. They include a trans/queer family with five children in Iowa who must find a new community after being expelled from their church, which they “desperately” miss, according to the trailer; a gay Black couple with a young daughter testing the line of acceptance in Nebraska; a lesbian couple homeschooling their bullied son on a farm in Kansas; a gay teacher in Ohio creating a safe space for LGBTQI+ students as bullying reemerges; and a couple in Minnesota struggling to rebuild their families following both of their transitions. Minnesota Rep. and queer mother, Heather Keeler, who continues to bring LGBTQI+ rights to the political forefront, despite receiving death threats, is also featured.

Check out the official synopsis and key art for We LIve Here: The Midwest below.

“All families must confront challenges, every day. But many also face a rising tide of discrimination and hate in their churches, schools, and even their own neighborhoods.”

Related: The Mattachine Family Review: A Heartwarming LGBTQ Indie Film About Chosen Families

We Live Here: The Midwest is created by filmmakers David Miller and Melinda Maerker. In a recent conversation with PEOPLE, Miller, who shares three children with husband Ryan Murphy, expanded on how 2016 became a turning point for the United States’ LGBTQI+ population.

“I was obviously very happy with gay marriage passing in the Supreme Court. But then when 2016 came around, we started reading articles about how some families and gay people were being discriminated against.”

Through the documentary, Miller and Maerker aim to show that everyone, despite sexual orientation and gender identity, shares similar familial struggles, something they hope will unite communities.

“You’re watching them making breakfast or cooking lunch or things like that and you recognize, ‘Wow, these people really aren’t much different,'” said Miller. “They still have the same complexities and struggles of financial burdens or whatnot. They love their kids just like anybody else.”

According to Maerker, the families featured, who live in a society (as the trailer says) with a “resistance to change,” showed courage by sharing their lives for the documentary. Maerker told the publication:

“We’re very proud of them for that.”

We Live Here: The Midwest joins Hulu’s vast unscripted winter programming slate, which includes the documentary The Lady Bird Diaries and docuseries including The Impossible Formula One Story with Keanu Reeves, Drive with Swizz Beats, The Secret Life of Dancing Dogs, and Daughters of the Cult, among others.

We Live Here: The Midwest premieres on Hulu December 6.