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Queer Chicago
Chicago Area Bars & Clubs
Chicago Area Restaurants
News & Info from Local LGBT Media Sponsors:
Windy City Media Group | Pink Magazine
ChicagoPride.com | Gay Chicago Magazine
Third Coast Marketing | Boi Magazine
PinkAgenda.com | Edge Magazine (Suburban Rockford)
Chicago Free Press
Chicago has one of the most active, friendly and growing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered communities in the world, and is a welcoming mecca for the LGBT travelers.
Public Sector
LGBTs are represented in prominent public offices and citizens have expansive protection under city and county civil-rights and domestic-partner laws. LGBT Chicagoans enjoy employee domestic-partner benefits, protective hate-crime laws, individual, joint, and second-parent adoptions, and laws barring discrimination based on sexual orientation.
Chicago Alderman Tom Tunney
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley publicly stated his support for same-sex marriage, declaring, "Marriage has been undermined by divorce. Don't blame the gay and lesbian, transgender and transsexual community." Under Mayor Daley the city created Chicago's Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame, the only government supported organization of its kind.
Community Organizations
Almost 100 LGBT cultural, intellectual, social and political organizations flourish in Chicago – ranging from Affinity, a south-side group for women of color and Amigas Latinas, a group for lesbian Latinas, to the 500-member Chicago Area Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce and the Howard Brown Health Center, the Midwest's largest LGBT health facility. Five major, weekly publications and a weekly radio program serve our community.
Chicago Pride Halsted Street
Sports Organizations
Chicago has a thriving LGBT sports community and is home to several large LGBT sports membership organizations that manage and support more than 4,000 local athletes on an annual basis including Chicago Metropolitan Sports Association, Windy City Athletic Association, Team Chicago and the Women's Sports Association. Athletes from around the world compete in the many LGBT international sports tournaments hosted in this sports-loving town – basketball to softball, volleyball to tennis, ice hockey to road races.
Neighborhoods
In addition to hundreds of GLBT-owned and friendly businesses and social hubs throughout the city, Chicago has an official City of Chicago designated LGBT neighborhood, Lakeview, marked by 22 rainbow-ringed and illuminated 20-foot pylons. Known by the locals as "Boys Town," this highly eclectic gay quarter features fine restaurants, outdoor cafes, vintage clothing, high fashion, and several blocks of LGBT bars ranging from the classic Chicago pubs, to sultry lounges, from hard-core leather scenes to booming, high-energy dance clubs. Wandering Halsted and Broadway streets, the neighborhood's main stages, a visitor might think he or she had stumbled onto a gay pride celebration.
Andersonville, an old Swedish enclave, has steadily developed into a very popular, yet low-key lesbian and gay neighborhood. Andersonville, a sort of "Girl's Town," features one of few remaining independent women's bookstores in the nation, a sleek LGBT gym, coffee houses, art galleries, and a wide variety of ethnic culinary experiences. LGBT-owned restaurants, gourmet delis and ethnic food stores add elegance to the somewhat bohemian scene. Although not a traditionally late-night spot, Andersonville is home to many LGBT bars, including a swank wine bar, taverns, dance clubs, leather bars, and some of the friendliest neighborhood pubs you will find in the city.
Hollywood Beach, long recognized as the LGBT beach, is a pleasant 15-minute walk through the beautifully landscaped and garden-laden streets of Andersonville. You'll have no trouble identifying the LGBT section of this beach. Just look for the hundreds of bathing suit-clad men and women near the volleyball nets.
Learn More
Though there are areas of town that are clearly more queer than others, most of Chicago's neighborhoods are friendly and progressive and will welcome you with open arms. We couldn't possibly identify every bar or restaurant or hot spot. To learn more about Queer Chicago visit the websites of these Gay Games VII sponsors: Windy City Media Group, Pink Magazine, ChicagoPride.com, Gay Chicago Magazine, Third Coast Marketing, Boi Magazine, PinkAgenda.com, Edge Magazine (Suburban Rockford), and Chicago Free Press.
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