With all the recent Gay Games hoopla, Chicago is finally getting some overdue credit for being gay friendly. In 1961 Illinois was the first state to decriminalize any private sexual behavior between consenting adults. In 1988, the City Council passed the Human Rights Ordinance, outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation and including GLBTQ folks in hate crime protections. Ten years later the rainbow pylons lining North Halsted Street were erected, giving the nation one of its first officially recognized gay ghettos. Mayor Daley loves the gays so much he wants to gay-marry us. If your sexual preference strays in any way from one-on-one penis-vagina action, as far as places to live go, you could do worse.
But who can afford to go out like that all the time? And if you’re under 21, it’s not even an option. Sometimes it might seem like everyone else is having a great big boozy butt-sex party 24-7 but that you, youngster, are not invited.
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By taking advantage of nightly specials at many venues you can get the most of your thin dollar and cut down on your grocery bill as well. Just watch the savings stack up!
Locals consider Friday and (especially) Saturday “amateur nights” at the bars, when all the suburban punters come to the city, shaking things up with their eight-balls, mullets, and tucked-in shirts. Two of the best alternative dance parties for queers under 30 take place on weeknights: Outdanced, Tuesday nights at the Funky Buddha (728 W. Grand, 312-666-1695, funkybuddha.com), and Trans-mission, the multigender-friendly dance party every first and third Thursday at Star Gaze (5419 N. Clark, 773-561-7363, stargazechicago.com). Both of these parties are mixed women/men/others, as is the queer rock ‘n’ roll cabaret Flesh Hungry Dog Show, held every third Friday night at Jackhammer. For mostly women, Dirty Girl Thursdays at the Lakeview Broadcasting Corp (3542 N. Halsted, dirtygirlthursdays.moonfruit.com) is an upstart ladies’ night that usually doesn’t charge a cover.
The city’s GLBTQ cultural scenes offer many options that don’t discriminate against age or income level. Gerber/Hart Library (1127 W. Granville, 773-381-8030, gerberhart.org), Chicago’s 25-year-old GLBTQ lending library and archive, offers queer culture aplenty, with a regular schedule of lectures, art exhibits, film screenings, and book groups–and friends, they are all free. Scott Free’s free queer words and music series, Homolatte (7:30 PM on the first and third Tuesdays of the month at Tweet, 5020 N. Sheridan, 773-728-5576, homolatte.com), features one homo writer and musician a week. Chicago’s two most gay-friendly bookstores are Unabridged Bookstore (3251 N. Broadway, 773-883-9119) with a great selection of well-chosen, ultracheap remainder titles, and Women & Children First (5233 N. Clark, 773-769-9299, womenandchildrenfirst.com) with great free programming.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photos/Nick Laham/Getty Images, Scott Olson/Getty Images.
