The cars pull up one by one into the desolate suburban parking lot of Hunter’s Nightclub in Elk Grove Village. Transgender activists and people of all gender identifications dressed in varying degrees of drag step out of the vehicles and start organizing. Behind them, a trans flag hangs from the roof of a station wagon. The protesters excitedly look over talking points, pass around a petition and take a moment to hug and catch up. “You’ve got a beard, look at you!” someone in the crowd shouts. “We should give out genderfucked cards,” says another. The party is hastily broken up, however, when the bar’s manager arrives on the scene, accompanied by a bouncer. Asked if the group could enter the bar rather than be kicked out, the manager replies, “If you’ve got IDs.”

Hunter’s, one of the best-known gay bars in the northwest suburbs, has served Chicago’s LGBT community for twenty-seven years. A couple of months ago, Hunter’s instituted a policy that requires patrons to show IDs that match their “gender presentation.” Read the rest of this entry »

The time-honored tradition of The Fourth Annual “No Pants Party” makes Lincoln Park’s Skybar transform into a girls-for-girls paradise. From the sidewalk looking up to the second-floor window, two very scantily clad young ladies—with no more than pink lingerie and white fluffy boots—shake what their mammas gave them and hope their fathers aren’t aware of it.

A skinny, mustachioed hipster in maroon boxer shorts and suspenders dances to the muffled beats from inside the bar next to the uncomfortable valet attendants. Sunday at Skybar is designated Gay Night, and tonight is no different. Chicago’s strong and vibrant lesbian community is out in full force making the best of their last few hours of the weekend before returning to the Monday morning grind. The place looks like a normal party with loud house music and strobe lights until the adorable—and unfortunately unattainable—waitress, wearing American Apparel briefs, strolls over. She’s holding trays of fluorescent shooters, claiming they have the elixir for a time you’re sure to forget in the morning, only to remember as your head falls below the rim of the toilet upon crawling out of bed. Of course she didn’t actually say that, but we all know the result of glow-in-the-dark booze.           Read the rest of this entry »

For those of us of a certain age, the story of our lifetime has been the civil rights movement and the infusion of its fundamental ideal, one drawn from the very words used to call this nation into existence—”that all men are created equal”—beyond racial equality and into every segment of our culture, whether it be the rights of the disabled or the perpetual struggle to turn a patriarchal society into one of equal opportunity regardless of gender. And so, we turn to what may be the final obstacle that keeps us from turning that noble concept voiced 233 years ago from principle into reality.

Those of you who follow Newcity know that we may be liberal in other ways, but not with the practice of endorsement. But just as we believed the election of Barack Obama as president transcended all other issues last November, so too do we believe that this issue, the equal rights of all persons, transcends all other issues.

This is the moment. Nations around the world are moving forward with marriage equality; so too are states around this nation. While Illinois cannot be first, it can still make its influence, and so too Chicago, since neither New York City nor Los Angeles are situated in states where gay couples may marry. This is the moment to enact equal marriage rights in Illinois and we call upon our elected leaders to pass the necessary legislation with appropriate haste so that our state might resume its place as a portent of progess, as manifest by our favorite sons Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama, rather than the crest of corruption that the same fingers of progress seem too often predisposed to favor inside the voting booth. We’ll defer to others to lead the way on tactics, but ask all of you to make your voices heard. For as the poet Ella Wheeler Wilcox once wrote, “To sin by silence, when they should protest, makes cowards of men.” Read the rest of this entry »

Parties, parades, workshops, readings and more—we got it all Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a list of Illinois state representatives in the Chicago area, their contact numbers and office addresses. Read the rest of this entry »