Bernina Mata’s attorneys say prosecutors used homophobic rhetoric to secure a death sentence in 1999. Now they’re asking the governor to set her free.
Tag: LGBTQ
Posted inNews
Deaths of Black trans women rock Chicago’s LGBTQ+ community
The deaths once again bring an epidemic of violence against the community close to home.
Posted inBest of Chicago
Best LGBTQ+ bar 75 steps from the Mag Mile
Look for the unassuming, narrow doorway wedged in between an Armenian restaurant and the former staff entrance to the now-shuttered Gap behemoth on Michigan Avenue, climb the nearly vertical and carpeted stairway to the second floor, and you’ve entered the best LGBTQ+ watering hole this side (or any side) of the Mag Mile. Known for […]
Posted inNews
Queer Ukrainians in Chicago fear the worst amid Russian invasion
Russia’s violent history toward the LGBTQ+ community has many worried that anti-queer violence will be meted out in Ukraine.
Posted inFilm
Interview with the film queen
Chicagoan Ramona Slick has curated a monthly meeting place for Chicago’s film nerds and queer community. In December, the erotic performer and queer burlesque dancer debuted a new event series, Rated Q, at the Music Box Theatre. Each event features a brief drag show and screening of a queer film classic. Audience members wear their […]
Posted inFeature, News, News & Politics
Howard Brown Health halts its medical forensic exam program
Employees say a program that serves LGBTQI+ survivors of sexual assault is failing staff and patients.
Posted inArts & Culture
Hidden no more
One of my favorite passages in Chicago journalist Michael J. O’Loughlin’s new book, Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear, opens like an old-school joke. A nun named Sister Carol Baltosiewich is sitting in a New York City gay bar and eyeing the men around her, when […]
Posted inFood & Drink
Social and sober
The “sober curious”—individuals who abstain from drinking to explore the positive effects of sobriety—have a new enclave in Andersonville. Eli Tea Bar, an alcohol-free social space, offers options for those rethinking their relationship with alcohol, including more than 100 loose leaf teas and special in-house blends, bubble tea, and kombucha on tap. Bar owner Elias […]
Posted inArts & Culture
‘I need to know trans joy exists in order to imagine myself living in the future.’
Trans joy and pain gently mingle in poet H. Melt’s new chapbook There Are Trans People Here, out this month from Chicago’s Haymarket Books. The poems in this collection give the reader a sense that all the pain and suffering the world inflicts on trans people is something that can be overcome, transformed, and understood. […]
Posted inHistory
Queer history through the eyes of the Reader
“Y oung Hyde Park male seeks other young males to get it on with.” A phone number followed, along with the young man’s availability: days, as well as Friday and Saturday. The Chicago Reader’s first explicitly gay content came not in a blistering exposé, music feature, or show review, but in the classifieds, the backpages […]
Posted inCity Life
Ray of sunshine
“I would love Chicago to be a fashion center like NYC,” says yoga teacher Bradshaw Wish, 32, who was doing his part while grocery shopping on a sunny Friday afternoon. Not styled for any special occasion, Wish says he simply “loves to dress up.” That day his styling process started with the dress, followed by […]
Posted inMusic
Decades of divas on the gig poster of the week
This week’s featured gig poster features art by anthropologist and graphic designer Kisira Hill.
Posted inMusic
Chicago rapbrarian Roy Kinsey makes music for summer celebrations with Juke Skywalker Vol. 1
Chicago rapper and librarian Roy Kinsey has drawn national attention for his remarkable concept albums and their sensitive, piercingly thoughtful lyrics. In 2018 he dropped Blackie: A Story by Roy Kinsey, a deeply personal and thoroughly researched record about race in America that’s informed by Kinsey’s family history and the Great Migration; last year he […]
Posted inMusic
Original Rainbow Burger on the gig poster of the week
This week’s featured gig poster was created for an outdoor food, drag, and music carnival by Paul Octavious and Aaron Lowell Denton.