The group rejected the mainstream gay rights movement and kept alive the spirit of radical LGBTQ+ activism.
Tag: ACT UP
Posted inNews & Politics
When crime goes viral
Activists say Illinois’s law that makes it illegal to expose others to HIV is racist and homophobic. Now they’re close to changing it.
Posted inArts & Culture
The 1980s AIDS epidemic in Chicago revisited in Rebecca Makkai’s new novel, The Great Believers
“I would love for people who lived through this to feel some recognition, to feel some catharsis.”
Posted inFilm
Tales of seduction and betrayal light up Reeling: The Chicago LGBTQ+ International Film Festival
Hello Again, a musical reimagining of Arthur Schnitzler’s La Ronde, opens the fest’s 35th edition.
Posted inBlogs
The radical queer punks at Fed Up Fest throw a fund-raising Rock Lotto show
Fed Up Fest fights for LGBTQ rights with an anarchic DIY concert where every band drew its lineup out of a hat six weeks ago.
Posted inMusic
Patrick Haggerty carries on the spirit of Lavender Country
Forty years later, the man behind the first gay country record teams up with a former Chicagoan to reach out to another marginalized population.
Posted inArts & Culture
The End of San Francisco: Between memory and forgetting
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s masterful new memoir tracks a radical activist’s education in a changing city.
Posted inArts & Culture
The enduring importance of The Normal Heart
The enduring importance of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart
Posted inMusic
Tim’m West and the masculine mystique
Tim’m West has shown that there’s more than one way to be a black gay man.
Posted inBlogs
The aesthetics of crap, and the rest of this week’s screenings
New reviews and notable screenings in this week’s issue
Posted inNews & Politics
In Honor of Danny Sotomayor
“Of course I know he’s not here,” said Rick Garcia as he stood outside the mayor’s office on the fifth floor of City Hall. He was wearing a dapper black blazer, a CURE AIDS NOW button, and a new goatee. “But I’m going to go through with this anyway. I want to return my award; […]
Posted inNews & Politics
No Time for Heroes
To the editors: With over 90,000 dead from complications believed to be caused from AIDS, the Reader offers its readers a lesson in machismo masochism. The article, “The Angriest Queer” by Joseph Crump [August 17], is an example of the misinformation necessary to make a martyr. Hate, stupidity and discrimination are tragically as much of […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Return of Unsafe Sex
To the editors: Your article on “The Angriest Queer” [17 August] was very good as far as it went–a character sketch of Danny Sotomayor. But it seemed briefer than your usual cover article, with its endless detail, and it did not say what Sotomayor has really accomplished. I don’t mean to suggest he hasn’t accomplished […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Did Royko Have It Coming?
Like the Bible and William Shakespeare, Mike Royko has now been annotated. The guerrilla wing of gay activism in Chicago performed this scholarly deed two weeks ago, picking apart a July column about AIDS and offering it as proof of Royko’s sins. During the night of August 2, members of ACT UP/Chicago faxed the Royko […]