The Gay Rights Movement In Illois: A History - CBS Chigo

Contents:

• CHIGO GAY NEIGHBORHOOD HISTORY
• HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI
• NATNAL LANDMARK HOME OF 1920S GAY ACTIVIST SOLD
• THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN ILLOIS: A HISTORY
• RUDY GAY EXPECTED TO DRAW TERT OM WARRRS, LAKERS, MAVERICKS, BULLS, PELINS

CHIGO GAY NEIGHBORHOOD HISTORY

To celebrate LGBT Pri Month, we thought we’d look back at Chigo’s gay neighborhood history before rearch Chigo history and archecture like this while velopg our live virtual events and ctom rporate events. Gay Meetg Plac the Heart of the CyPosh meetg spots, like the Chigo Athletic Associatn, sometim beme popular “cisg” statns for gay men next entry Chigo gay neighborhood history may surprise you: The Loop.

), all kds of beliefs that were way outsi the stat quo, so naturally beme a place where gay, lbian and genr nonnformg people uld live openly Dil Pickle Club, the crazy heart of Towertown, was also a hub of Chigo’s nascent LGBT muny. From time to time, though, policians or the police would feel prsured to “do somethg” about alleged morals issu the cy, and stage raids on the gay and lbian bars.

HOW GAY CULTURE BLOSSOMED DURG THE ROARG TWENTI

) Gay, lbian or genr nonnformg people were also subject to harassment, arrt, discrimatn most aspects of their liv too, om hog to employment or simply walkg down the street. Photo via Future of Chigo Gay Neighborhood HistoryWhen the rabow pylons of the North Halsted Legacy Walk were stalled, was a clear ditor that the gay neighborhood of Chigo was at last here to stay. Some have qutned s clivy recent years and poted to how changg mographics the district dite that fewer and fewer gay people actually live  Chigo’s signated gay neighborhood.

As the overall cy has bee more wele and open to queer people, other neighborhoods may lay claim to beg another Chigo gay neighborhood, while some may say there’s no need for a specific gay neighborhood at all.

By the mid-1920s, at the height of the Prohibn era, they were attractg as many as 7, 000 people of var rac and social class—gay, lbian, bisexual, transgenr and straight alike. The Begngs of a New Gay World“In the late 19th century, there was an creasgly visible prence of genr-non-nformg men who were engaged sexual relatnships wh other men major Amerin ci, ” says Chad Heap, a profsor of Amerin Studi at Gee Washgton Universy and the thor of Slummg: Sexual and Racial Enunters Amerin Nightlife, 1885-1940. By the 1920s, gay men had tablished a prence Harlem and the bohemian mec of Greenwich Village (as well as the seedier environs of Tim Square), and the cy’s first lbian enclav had appeared Harlem and the Village.

NATNAL LANDMARK HOME OF 1920S GAY ACTIVIST SOLD

Each gay enclave, wrote Gee Chncey his book Gay New York: Genr, Urban Culture, and the Makg of the Gay Male World, 1890-1940, had a different class and ethnic character, cultural style and public reputatn. Gay Life the Jazz AgeAs the Uned Stat entered an era of unprecented enomic growth and prospery the years after World War I, cultural mor loosened and a new spir of sexual eedom reigned.

THE GAY RIGHTS MOVEMENT IN ILLOIS: A HISTORY

Though New York Cy may have been the epicenter of the so-lled "Pansy Craze, " gay, lbian and transgenr performers graced the stag of nightspots ci all over the untry. ”At the same time, lbian and gay characters were beg featured a slew of popular “pulp” novels, songs and on Broadway stag (cludg the ntroversial 1926 play The Captive) and Hollywood—at least prr to 1934, when the motn picture dtry began enforcg censorship guil, known as the Hays Co.

RUDY GAY EXPECTED TO DRAW TERT OM WARRRS, LAKERS, MAVERICKS, BULLS, PELINS

In the mid- to late ‘30s, Heap pots out, a wave of sensatnalized sex crim “provoked hysteria about sex crimals, who were often— the md of the public and the md of thori—equated wh gay men.

” By the post-World War II era, a larger cultural shift toward earlier marriage and suburban livg, the advent of TV and the anti-homosexualy csas champned by Joseph McCarthy would help ph the flowerg of gay culture reprented by the Pansy Craze firmly to the natn’s rear-view mirror. The Dill Pickle Club on Tooker Alley hosted group discsns and bat on homosexualy and lbianism, while the Bally Hoo Cafe on North Halsted featured male and female impersonatn acts, as well as a ntt for cross-drsed patrons. Yet while the public spac played an important role the nstctn of Chigo's lbian and gay muny, private parti and personal works remaed the foundatn of gay culture.

One such work head by Henry Gerber, a postal clerk and Bavarian immigrant to Chigo, found the natn's earlit documented gay rights anizatn 1924; the Society for Human Rights published two pamphlets before s members were arrted and the group disband. Buildg on the succs of the terracial drag balls that had been held at the Colism Annex on the Near South Si sce the 1920s, the Fnie's Ball beme a celebrated Halloween event on the South Si, drawg thoands of gay and lbian participants and heterosexual onlookers well to the 1960s.

Among the bt known were Waldman's, a gay male bar n by a married Jewish uple on Michigan Avenue near Randolph Street, and the Rose-El-Inn, a lbian bar on Clark Street near Divisn. Raids on lbian and gay bars beme more equent, and thoands of women and men were arrted, both the bars and on the streets, for beg mat of disorrly ho (a label the thori applied to lbian and gay bars) or for vlatg the municipal ordance agast cross-drsg. Although Illois beme the first state the natn to legalize private, nsensual, homosexual relatns 1961, the thori remaed tent on elimatg public exprsns of homosexualy; the lol media assisted this enavor by publishg the nam and addrs of those arrted raids.

Earlier lol chapters of the Mattache Society and the Dghters of Bilis, two natnal homophile anizatns, had been short-lived and largely social, but 1964 a more polilly active Mattache Midwt was found. crackdowns, and wh the help of lbian attorney Pearl Hart and others, aid the fense of gay men and lbians who had been entrapped on morals charg or arrted bar raids.