And when they do get hired in the neighborhood, Rice says they face coded language and thinly veiled racism, including an insistence that they not play hip-hop. Rice says they and their wife, who is also Black, have been forced to open tabs to buy drinks and have faced what they called “oppressive dress codes” and higher scrutiny of their IDs.Īs a performer, Rice says Boystown club managers and promoters are reluctant to hire them because of the crowd they think Rice will attract. Jae Rice, a Black queer DJ, is all too familiar with those tactics. Lucy Stoole, co-chair of the Black Drag Council Credit: Vern Hester For scale, according to demographic data released in June, the entire population of the Lakeview community area between 20 was 100,547 the data also states that of those more than 100,500 Lakeview residents, roughly 78 percent are white. According to the data, which has been converted to 2018 monetary figures, the median household income in Lakeview in 1970 was nearly $48,000, but between 20, it had increased to almost $88,000.īoystown caters to roughly 146,000 adults in the city who identify as LGBTQ+, according to city data from 2018. That same data shows that the median income of Lakeview has also nearly doubled since the 1970s.
During that same period, the white population steadily increased. The Black population fell from roughly 6,500 in 1980 to 3,600 between 20. In 1980, the neighborhood’s Latinx population was more than 18,300, and fell to just more than 8,100 between 20, according to demographic data from consulting firm Rob Paral & Associates. Lakeview, the neighborhood that houses Boystown, is predominantly white and affluent, but that wasn’t always the case. The center eventually was renamed the Lesbian Feminist Center, and relocated to a space that’s barely a block away from what is now Center on Halsted, which opened in Boystown in 2007. And the city’s first feminist bookstore and a related women’s center opened in the early 1970s-in a space now occupied by an Allstate insurance branch, just steps away from where the popular gay bar Sidetrack now sits. The first known gay community center in Chicago was a project of the local chapter of landmark lesbian civil and political rights group the Daughters of Bilitis.
And people of color have always been central to advancing LGBTQ+ rights. “But on top of that, they are also playing into the whole stereotype of sexism in the gay community.” Women were instrumental in establishing Boystown as a safe space for members of the LGBTQ+ community, Baim says. They are absolutely profoundly misremembering ,” says Reader publisher Tracy Baim, author of Out and Proud in Chicago: An Overview of the City’s Gay Community. That petition has been met with criticism that organizers are trying to take away a community that critics say has been “for the boys.” Credit: Vern Hester But after decades of systemic and rampant racism in the community, some people of color have found safety outside of Boystown.īoystown-focused activists are also pushing the neighborhood to be more inclusive, and that effort includes a recent petition to rename Boystown to better reflect the LGBTQ+ community’s diversity. People pushing for change want the neighborhood to be a safe, diverse, and inclusive haven for all LGBTQ+ people as residents, visitors, customers, workers, and performers. Jason Orne, author of Boystown: Sex and Community in Chicago, says the significant racial divide here and in other LGBTQ+ enclaves exemplifies what he calls a “Disneyland kind of gayness” that focuses on affluent white gay men instead of the entire spectrum of the community. And multiple business owners in the community have been accused of underpaying Black and Brown employees, making racist comments, and favoring white, male, and athletic employees over others.Īmid ongoing, historic uprisings for racial equity across the globe, the ways that white residents and business owners in Boystown ensure its stark segregation mirror methods used by their predecessors decades ago in the same neighborhood. Last year, a Confederate flag vest was found at local vintage costume and clothing store Beatnix that same week, a leaked e-mail showed that the owner of Progress Bar had tried to ban rap music, a plan many said was aimed at keeping Black patrons out of the establishment. The north-side LGBTQ+ enclave Boystown is known for many things: its promenade of popular gay bars, a rotating roster of talented drag performers, and for what many say is a decades-long underbelly of white supremacy that persists to this day.
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