WATCH: An L Word Spin-Off Documents Life as a Lesbian in the Bible Belt

Get ready! Ten years after the groundbreaking show about lesbians in LA premiered, The L Word is returning to TV screens but in a totally new incarnation. Airing on Showtime on Friday August 8 at 9 p.m., L Word Mississippi: Hate the Sin is a 92 minute documentary produced by Ilene Chaiken creator and producer of The L Word and reality spin-off The Real L Word. Don't expect the same glam and drama of West Hollywood in this new L Word though. The documentary turns the camera on lesbians in the Deep South, where faith, family, and race add even more nuance and conflict to familiar LGBTQ stories of coming out, transitioning, and much more. 

Showtime entertainment president David Nevins emphasized that he and The L Word's creative team wanted to created a show "exploring L Word culture -- lesbian culture in places not New York, L.A. -- where the subcultures is not so defined and it's not so easy." Chaiken and her team centered their documentary on Bible Belt towns like Laurel, Gulfport, and Hattisburg where the locales offered backdrops of bigotry, sexism, and racism but also the potential for change.

Determined to live and thrive in the conservative South, the dozen or so women featured in L Word Mississippi share stories that we've never seen on TV before: a newly out former pastor is banished from her church, a white mother says she could accept that her daughter's lover is black but not that she's a woman, and a former life-long lesbian tries to "pray the gay away" for bother herself and her openly gay son.

For a first look at L Word Mississippi: Hate the Sin, check out some stills taken from the movie and watch the trailer below!