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Gay bars in some of their earliest days were where activists came together to mobilize, from fighting for marriage equality in more recent years to Summit’s “Gay $” project that combated AIDS discrimination by marking paper money to demonstrate the purchasing power of the queer community. Tom Tunney, Chicago’s first openly gay alderman whose ward includes Boystown, also repeatedly declined to comment on the claims of racism in the neighborhood.“We need these spaces because they’re often the entry point for people first coming out, and a place where travelers can visit and know they’re welcome,” said Tracy Baim, an LGBTQ advocate, publisher of the Chicago Reader and founder of the Windy City Times, the leading Chicago LGBTQ publication for over three decades. Management at Beatnix and Progress Bar, where the anti-black incidents took place last year, did not respond to requests for comment on the story. “That, for me, is very much so a waste of my time, when we know two or three days later, they’re going to be back doing the same thing,” she said. Wade said she is focused on supporting new communities rather than trying to dismantle the racism in Boystown. Two of the clubs she touted are Jeffery Pub - which Wade said was “the oldest-running gay club on the South Side” - and Club Escape in the South Shore neighborhood. “That’s a lot of work that I do on the South Side - to tell Black and brown people that we have our own clubs,” Wade said. LaSaia Wade, founder and executive director of South Side LGBT center Brave Space Alliance, said she spends much of her time spreading the word about alternatives to Boystown.
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He added that queer enclaves across the nation, such as those in Philadelphia and San Francisco, have faced similar issues. “Is it going to be intersectional and inclusive? Or are we going to have spaces that it really just matters who has the most money? Which, because of other ways our society is structured, is going to be white people.” “I think this is a tension that is really at the heart of what we want for the future of gay neighborhoods and the queer community,” Orne said. Jason Orne, a Drexel University assistant professor of sociology who wrote a book about Boystown, said last year’s incidents were just the latest in a yearslong pattern of hostility by the community’s mostly white residents toward people of color, especially queer youth of color. “If it wasn’t from the establishments, then it was from the people that actually went to Boystown.” “Right off the bat, the treatment that we got at Boystown was extremely oppressive,” Rice said. As a patron in Boystown, Rice said they have been forced to open tabs to buy drinks, have faced what they called “oppressive dress codes” and higher scrutiny of their ID. Jae Rice, a black queer DJ in Chicago, said they started their weekly party in the South Loop neighborhood to create space for queer women of color because of the racism they experienced.Īs a DJ, Rice said they have been asked by managers and promoters at bars and venues not to play hip hop music. The incidents only fueled conversations in the community about whether the queer enclave is welcoming to people of color.Īmid these incidents, queer activists, performers and everyday patrons of color alike said they have turned to other neighborhoods that haven’t been hit by the same allegations of racism, classism and profiling that have dogged Boystown in recent years. Around the same time, costume and vintage clothing store Beatnix made headlines when a customer found a Confederate flag vest for sale at the store. Last May, a leaked email showed that management at Boystown gay bar Progress Bar aimed to ban rap music at the bar. Queer people of color are turning away from Chicago “gayborhood” Boystown after two anti-black incidents last year and what some say is a pattern of hostility and racism in the neighborhood.