The annual LGBTI Health Summit was held at the Chicago Hilton and Towers, 720 S. Michigan, August 14-18, and the five-day international event kicked off with an entire day devoted to the issues and needs of bisexuals. According to the organizers, this is only the second event with a focus on bisexuality and health, the first being the Bi Health Summit at the 2003 North American Conference on Bisexuality in San Diego.
With the release of a movie based on his life, Harvey Milk’s life and work have gained a new significance in the public eye. Milk was the first openly gay member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, and served for 11 months before being assassinated by Dan White in 1978. While there is considerable material about his life in San Francisco, relatively little is known about his early years. On July 28, Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, 1338 W. Lake, will offer two signed letters from Milk that provide a glimpse into his thoughts and life in that time period.
Over the weekend of May 15-17, 24 people gathered in a hotel room at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport to discuss the next steps for the LGBT movement. They emerged with a set of eight points that they called the Dallas Principles. These include statements like, “separate is never equal” and “the establishment and guardianship of full civil rights is a non-partisan issue.” In addition, the group emerged with a list of “Full Civil Rights Goals,” which includes “Dignity and Equality,” and a “Call to Action.” Windy City Times spoke separately to two of the authors, Juan Ahonen-Jover and Jon Winkleman, about how the document came about and where they see it going.
Gender JUST (Justice United for Societal Transformation) held its first Safe and Affirming Education Community Forum at Lozano Library, 1805 S. Loomis, June 15. The event highlighted the issues facing LGBTQ/GNC (lesbian, gay bisexual, transgender and queer/gender non-conforming) students in CPS. The group invited Ron Huberman, the openly gay chief executive officer of Chicago Public Schools (CPS), to attend.
The 40th anniversary of Stonewall falls on June 28 this year, the same date of the original riot in 1969. Since Stonewall, the LGBTQ community has seen the formation of the Gay Liberation Front in the 1970s, the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and the rise of the same-sex-marriage movement in the late 1990s and beyond. To commemorate the event, the Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted, hosted an intergenerational roundtable discussion entitled “Stonewall and Beyond” June 11.
