Andy Thayer is best known for his work as a marriage activist in Gay Liberation Network (GLN) . However, he has also been a longtime anti-war activist as well as a critic of police brutality in Chicago.
The Reagan years defined a new era in LGBTQ organizing. The community struggled against governmental apathy towards AIDS while forging activist communities that demanded resources and health care for those affected by the disease.
For the most part, historians have paid attention to LGBTQ activism in this decade by focusing on the two coasts. However, Chicago witnessed its own efflorescence of intense activism in this decade, and a May 7 Out at CHM (Chicago History Museum, 1601 N. Clark) panel entitled “surviving Reagan” provided a glimpse at the work of some of the city’s queer activists. The event was moderated by Jennifer Brier, assistant professor of history and gender studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the author of a forthcoming book on the politics of AIDS from 1980 to 2000.
This year’s May Day celebration came at a time of both hope and uncertainty for both LGBTQ and straight attendees. With an Obama administration in the White House, there is hope for substantive changes in policy among labor organizers and immigration activists. But this year’s rally came in the midst of an outbreak of “swine flu,” later dubbed A(H1N1) by the World Health Organization. Since this particular strain is reported to have its origins in Mexico, and because Chicago’s annual May Day march has effectively become an immigrant-rights march, concerns about contagion caused initial uncertainty about whether or not the event would even go on.
Chicago’s infamous machine politics is as much the stuff of lore as a reality of Chicago life. Richard J. Daley, most associated with the machine, was mayor from 1955 to 1976. His son, Richard M. Daley, has been mayor from 1989 to the present. Except for a period of 13 years in the interim, there has been a Daley in power since the mid-1950s. The issue of what differences, if any, mark the tenures of the two men has been the subject of several books.
Homophobia within the Chicago Police Department (CPD) has been an issue for several gay activists and attorneys of clients alleging homophobic slurs and misconduct by police officers. A recent press conference by, among others, Jon Erickson of Erickson & Oppenheimer Attorneys at Law, Gay Liberation Network and local activists spotlighted lawsuits recently filed against Officer Richard Fiorito, an officer at the the 23rd District police station at Addison and Halsted.
The National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) , a program of Heartland Alliance, hosted a conference on LGBT Immigration issues entitled ‘defending the Human Rights of LGBT and HIV-Positive Immigrants and Refugees.” The conference took place March 26-27. The conference took place at Northwestern University Law School, 357 E. Chicago Avenue (on the first day) and the law firm McDermott, Will and Emery, 227 W. Monroe (on the second day).
The Chicago Department of Senior Services is required to conduct annual citywide public hearings on the Area Plan on Aging. This public document is designed to describe how the Office of Senior Services will use funds from the Older Americans Act of 1965 and from the State of Illinois General Revenue Funds. Howard Brown recently conducted an LGBT Elder Needs Assessment, and the results were presented at a public forum at the Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted, March 24. The event was organized by the Chicago Task Force on LGBT Aging and the SAGE Advisory Council.