Map of chicago gay bars
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“I was like, ‘I don’t know who you are - and usually, if you’re gay in this town, I know you.’ But aside from that, to see so many strangers of all colors, walking around, going to lunch, having drinks was really cool.” “I was just down there yesterday and saw so many more Black faces, young Black people, " said Jo MaMa. Jo MaMa, who came to Boystown in 2008 from Atlanta, has seen signs of progress. Camp attributes that, in part, to the “for the boys” implication of the Boystown moniker. They recalled being treated poorly by heterosexual tourists, who seem to think the neighborhood is just for gay men.
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To (our credit), our community keeps working on how to move ahead with that.”Ĭamp, who is gender nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, has been working in the neighborhood since 2013. But the reality is that Chicago is a city that has racial issues, and we have them in our community as well. “Do I wish that there was no racism? Of course I do. that the people involved (in building Boystown businesses) were primarily white guys who had fewer burdens of discrimination than folks in the South and West sides,” Johnston said. “We are still one of the most segregated cities in the United States, and there’s no question.
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Nine of the 11 members of the board of the Northalsted Business Alliance are white men only one board member is Black, and Ariyanayakam is South Asian. The site of the former police station at Halsted and Addison streets where he said he was jailed in 1984 by a police officer who berated him - using a homophobic slur - for owning a gay bar, is now home to LGBTQ senior housing.īut both Johnston and Ariyanayakam acknowledge that most of the people who have been able to own and grow businesses in the neighborhood are white men. The Northalsted Business Alliance was actually one of the last entities to call the neighborhood Boystown, starting about four years ago, according to Ariyanayakam.Īs for the broader issue of inclusion in Boystown, Johnston said he’s seen some progress. “I don’t know any businessperson who likes the name,” said Johnston, 77, noting, “The message that it sends is not exactly open and welcoming to folks that are anything but boys.” Suddenly, the name was everywhere, and not everyone was happy about that. The real turning point came with the rise of the internet in the 1990s, and the appearance of “Boystown” on online maps, according to Johnston. Johnston says that’s true, but with the column, the name gained traction in Chicago. The author of that column, journalist Rex Wockner, told the Tribune via Twitter that the name was already in use at the time. “It’s just something I grew up with - knowing that name,” Negrete said of Boystown.Īrt Johnston, co-owner of the sprawling Sidetrack video bar in Boystown, traces the name back to a column called “Boys Town” that ran in a local LGBTQ paper in the late 1980s. Faced with new names for local landmarks such as the Willis (aka Sears) Tower or Macy’s (Marshall Field’s), Chicagoans often conscientiously object, expressing their loyalty and local roots by using names that are years out of date. Local attitudes, extending well beyond Boystown, also appear to play a role. “If you change the name, I’m worried that you’re going to lose that piece of history,” said Gary Chichester, 74, a board member emeritus at the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame. It’s a place where the Chicago Pride parade grew to a citywide celebration of diversity and self-expression that draws an estimated 1 million people each year. Jo MaMa - the drag persona of Chicago artist and bartender Joe Lewis, 35 - said employers have made some progress. “We’ve got to keep those feet to the fire, and maybe escalate a little bit,” said Drag March organizer Jo MaMa, a Chicago drag queen who has been working with local bars and nightclubs for the past year on issues such as staff diversity training and enforcement of anti-racism policies. I’ve been out with friends who are lesbians, and they’ve been told by gay men in the bars, ‘Why are you here? This isn’t your neighborhood.’”Ī year later, the push for inclusion continues, with a second installment of the Drag March for Change scheduled for June 13. “I’ve worked in the neighborhood for years, and I’ve seen firsthand how people are treated in the North Halsted area, particularly transgender people of color, particularly women.
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“It’s something I’ve been passionate about for a long time,” Camp told the Tribune at the time. The petition authors called for Boystown, an unofficial but nearly universal nickname, to be dropped, as a first step toward deeper change. In the midst of the tumult, Devlyn Camp, 29, a podcast producer, co-wrote a petition calling for a name change that has garnered more than 1,500 signatures.