140: Ry Russo-Young on her “Nuclear Family”

In the three-part series Nuclear Family, filmmaker Ry Russo-Young explores her own family history. She was born in 1981 and grew up with two lesbian moms Russo and Robin and an older sister in Manhattan at at time when gay parenting was still rare. Her sperm donor Tom Steel was a gay lawyer in San Francisco who wound up suing Ry’s moms for paternity rights. From a young age, Ry was active in trying to tell her family’s story and defend her mothers against discrimination in the courts and in the media. Ry appeared in Meema Spadola’s PBS documentary Our House (2000) about kids of gay and lesbian parents; and was profiled in the New York Times magazine in 2004. But there were always murky areas to the lawsuit that Ry couldn’t fully confront until now.

Pure Nonfiction host Thom Powers helped to produce "Our House” and finally gets a chance to re-open questions with Ry that remained perplexing for over 20 years.