National
Remembering Barbara ‘Boo’ Price, a pioneering force in women’s music
Key organizer behind Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival
Barbara (“Boo”) Easter Price, a pioneering figure in the women’s music movement, died Tuesday, Aug. 4 in Oakland, Calif. Price produced some of the earliest women’s music concerts as a new lesbian-feminist culture was taking shape, and was a driving force behind the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival which ran from 1976 to 2015 – a flagship event in the movement, and the largest women’s music festival in North America. Price was 82.
“Her vision from the very beginning was how complex and how wide the whole phenomenon of women’s music could be, and how far we could carry it beyond the multi-purpose rooms and church basements into Town Hall and the Palace of Fine Arts and major media,” says singer-songwriter Margie Adam, for whom Price served as manager, agent, producer and attorney from 1975 to 1984, and, for part of that time, her romantic partner.
“I think when she heard Cris Williamson, Vicki Randle and me sing at the Embassy Theater in 1974, she grasped that this thing we were just beginning to call women’s music could actually be a soundtrack for the women’s liberation movement – that it could be an activator and a healing, empowering tool.”
Arguably, nowhere was that emerging culture of music, feminism and community more fully realized than at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival.
At its peak, 8,000 women, predominantly lesbians, came from around the world to gather for a week in August. Camping, music, dance performances, workshops and the requisite tofu and beans were just a few of the innumerable offerings in this rite of passage for a generation of lesbians in a time when there were few safe and free environments available.
Alicia Davis of Michigan remembers the festival foremost for its sense of community. “The feeling of not having to make myself smaller to fit into the world, but rather the feeling that I could be happy, loud and share my opinions and feel valued, even when there were disagreements among people,” she says. “There was a shared respect that I didn’t feel outside of the festival walls. The festival shaped what I thought women could do in the world, the entire camp was made by women: electricians, plumbers, cooks, carpenters, singers, artists of every stripe… “
The sense of shared experience followed women long after they left “the land.”
In the 1980s, drivers across the U.S. would exchange knowing glances when passing a car with the familiar “See you in August!” bumper sticker. It was the original IYKYK.
The Festival was also an important showcase for emerging and established musicians, including Holly Near, Meg Christian, Tracy Chapman, Indigo Girls and Ani DiFranco. The list of alumni is vast and stretches across genres from classical to Afro-centric percussion. To name just a few: Casselberry-DuPree, Phranc, Heather Bishop, Ubaka Hill, big band Deuce, flutist Kay Gardner, Edwina Lee Tyler, Lynn Breedlove-fronted punk band Tribe 8, pianist Mary Watkins, and Cultural Heritage Choir founder Linda Tillery who remembers Boo as the big sister she never had.
“I could go to her with anything, and she would listen and give counsel. She was always supportive of me and usually right,” the singer and arranger says.
And while Michigan wasn’t the only festival in the country, it inspired people like marriage equality activist and comedian Robin Tyler who attended Michigan because of Price, and went on to produce her own West Coast music and comedy festivals, as well as the main stage for three Marches on Washington.
“My last memory of Boo was not about Boo Price, the producer or the magician that could create everything,” says Tyler who was also Price’s lover for a time. “It was how lucky I was to have had her in my life at all, and that we were able to love each other and share. She was one of the most influential people of my life.”
Price’s talents were evident across the festival’s sprawling operation which relocated several times over its 40-year existence. In 1982, together with one of the original founders, Lisa Vogel, Price purchased the land that would become the festival’s permanent 650-acre home near Hart, Michigan; in 1983, she became a co-owner and co-producer, a role she held until the two parted ways in 1994.
From 1976–1994, Price was involved in many aspects of the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. But her prowess as producer was perhaps most visible at the Night Stage. Her contemporaries have vivid memories of an opening ceremony with an aerialist swinging on a trapeze from an oak tree, while jazz artist Rhiannon performed on vocals.
“Sometimes it started with a parade or a procession and percussion, and sometimes there were stilt walkers – and so there was always this production about you as you were coming to Night Stage,” remembers Sändra Washington, who performed with her twin sister Sharon as the Washington Sisters. As a performer, Washington recalled the wall of energy rushing at her from the audience.
“It was her desire to create a thing, a space, an event that was really magnificent – and that showed in everything she did, whether or not she was organizing a tour, or she was organizing a party, or events at the [Montclair] club,” says Washington. “Boo really specialized in creating a whole vibe around the event, the space, the production, so that you felt something special when you came into a space that Boo had created.”
“There was never a space that felt as positive, overwhelming, and energetic as the crowd at Michigan.”
Kathryn A. Willmore, co-founder of feminist journal Sojourner, remembers how Michigan grew into something bigger than anticipated – and how instrumental Price was in elevating the rudimentary systems needed to support it. One year, Willmore brought copies of Sojourner to the festival, hoping to connect with other people publishing women’s papers. “But there was no system for communicating any of that really. So I just tacked a note on a tree of that location, and there were about 30 of us that came together.”
Price, Willmore says, helped put systems in place, articulate a vision, and bring in people who could then carry it forward.
“Boo really empowered so many women in so many dimensions. I think that is one of the overarching themes of her life, and certainly in music production… and her confidence was infectious. So people who had never done something grew into becoming experts. I think that she inspired and empowered.”
Willmore first met Price in 1961 at Mt. Holyoke just after the women arrived for the start of college. “There were all these girls in this half-empty dorm in the middle of a hurricane, and Boo started going around to everyone’s room to introduce herself. Then she got to my room… and that was the beginning of this lifelong friendship.”
The importance of what Price created cannot be overstated, nor the reach and durability of the connections formed in the space she helped build.
Just last month, a French woman found this writer on Instagram 40 years after the Festival and claimed I invited her into my tent. We have been corresponding since this improbable reconnection (though the question of who did the inviting is under dispute):
Emmanuelle Gachet, now a writer and professor at Université de Nantes, reflects on her experience:
“In 1986, I step onto an island populated by six thousand women. I come from France, from a rural area, and I am twenty years old. Never before have I felt such a powerful energy. Here, lesbianism is the norm. I don’t have to justify my place. For the first time, I am not a minority. At the time, I am broke. The community welcomes me with sisterhood. I take part in artistic and political workshops, without always realizing their significance. I discover music without male voices. Women playing, singing, improvising, taking the stage. A stage of their own. Music becomes a common language, a way of recognizing one another, of celebrating who we are and what we can create together… I leave with the feeling that I am leaving a world that may never exist again… “
Price’s influence extended beyond the festival arena. The MSU Libraries document the breadth of her production work, including the Women on Wheels Tour in 1976; a celebration for the opening of Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party in 1979; concert closing the ERA Campaign at Constitution Hall with Margie Adam and Sweet Honey in the Rock; and, decades later, the 2008 San Francisco City Hall memorial for lesbian rights pioneer Del Martin. She also established Women in Production in 1976, which hired and trained primarily lesbian technicians and production staff.
Price co-founded Pleiades Records with Margie Adam in 1975, producing and promoting Adam’s first four albums. She had an eye for the entire presentation – from press kits and photography to album covers – and for how the emerging women’s music movement projected itself to the world. Price produced a 50-city tour promoting Adam’s first album, culminating at the historic National Women’s Conference in Houston in 1977, where Adam performed “We Shall Go Forth!” as 10,000 women joined in three-part harmony.
“When Boo and I began to work together, both of us were convinced that we should have that phrase, ‘Women’s music by women about women for everyone.’ And that was not a point of view that was agreed upon by everybody in women’s music,” Adam says. “We had wiggle room in there, and we had controversy, and we had continuums.” Ultimately, Price wanted the music “to get out as far as it can go.”
Barbara Easter Price was born on Oct. 8, 1943 in Lafayette, Ind. She received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Mount Holyoke College in 1965, and Juris Doctor from UC Davis in 1976.
She brought her legal background, organizational skills and business acumen to everything she touched – including the justice system, most notably through her work on child custody cases, a focus that grew out of her own experience.
In 1978 she co-authored a law review article on lesbian custody proceedings and how attorneys could best prepare, at a time when lesbians were viewed unfavorably by the courts and “Sexual Orientation Disturbances” remained a psychiatric diagnosis.
“People forget what it was like,” says attorney Diane Gelon, who first met Price in 1977 at the women’s conference in Houston. “The lesbian mother would not have even had what we would look at now as normal access to that child because the fear was that the kids would be gay or lesbian, or there would be some amount of gender confusion, or they would suffer some kind of psychological harm… These are the myths that Boo wrote about and tried to address.”
Earlier in her career, she also worked at the White House for the Food for Peace Program, where she helped organize a Latin American tour for First Lady Lady Bird Johnson. She also worked with the President’s Commission on Civil Disorders. Price later became active in Bay Area Lesbians in Law, the Lesbian Rights Project, Lyon-Martin Clinic, the National Lesbian Feminist Organization, National Organization for Women, the National Women’s Political Caucus, and Women and the Law.
Whether through politics, advocacy or music, much of Price’s work was centered around creating spaces for women.
Following her tenure with the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival and a brief hiatus, Price couldn’t help but create another gathering place. She had been regularly driving past an old building, originally established as a social and literary club in 1928. It still had its projection room, stage and lightboard. She knew she had to have it.
“She just was always producing, even when she had stopped,” says Sharon J. Washington.
Price purchased the building in 1996 and, after a thorough renovation, opened the Montclair Women’s Cultural Arts Club, which became home to the Montclair Women’s Big Band, which she co-founded with trumpeter Ellen Seeling in 1998. Over the next two decades, the predominantly lesbian space became a vital gathering hub, hosting more than 2,000 events – high-toned parties, workshops, theater, dance, concerts, and more.
“Her Valentine’s Day dances were extraordinary,” says Sändra Washington, who remembers four-course plated meals and, like many of Price’s friends, volunteered at the club.
When the club closed in 2015, luminaries of women’s music came together for farewell performances, and the San Francisco Bay Times chronicled the extraordinary range of what had taken place there: more than 500 birthday celebrations, 150 concerts (“which we can attest were fabulous,” the paper wrote), countless workshops, arts and cultural events.
“Whatever Boo had built, whether it was the club or her home – that was our second home,” says Sändra Washington.
“Buying that club was in some ways a transgressive action, but at the same time, it was saying we belong here,” says Margie Adam. “We belong everywhere. Women’s music belongs everywhere, and that was her vision from the moment that I met her.”
“I think of Boo as someone who inspired and empowered women everywhere,” says Kathryn Willmore. “She herself was a fearless explorer, and she instilled that spirit into so many other women who would never imagine themselves doing the things that they did. And it wasn’t just in music.”
Willmore remembers Price’s first foray into scuba diving. “She was a good swimmer, but there she was, completely underwater with this mask on, not being able to see much in front of her. So she just kept her eyes on the fins of the guide in front of her.”
She woke up the next morning and said, “Let’s do that again.”
“And she just fell in love with it, became an expert diver, and then inspired so many other women – including me,” says Willmore, who would never have imagined venturing into the sea’s depths had it not been for Price.
Price soon convinced others to join her, and organized trips over the years to explore earth’s bounteous ocean offerings – women traveling the world from the Caribbean to the Solomon Islands and sharing in the joy that Price found amid the coral reefs of Indonesia.
Price is survived by her son, Andrés Garcia Price; daughter-in-law, Katie Garcia; granddaughter, Tallulah Katherine Garcia; nieces Melissa Price and her husband, Donal, and Cynthia Price Czabala and her husband, Tom; and an expansive community of chosen family, friends, and beneficiaries of her generous and unstoppable spirit.
“Many of you know that Boo’s health had been in decline for some time,” Kathryn Willmore, Sharon J. Washington, and Margie Adam wrote in announcing their friend’s passing. “Over this past weekend, she had a serious heart attack and was being cared for in the hospital, with her son Andrés and family with her much of the time. Yesterday afternoon, she noticed a partially open door in her room and asked the nurse if that was the exit, because she was ready to leave. A few hours later, she did just that – moving on to another realm, but never out of our hearts.”
New York
NYC lawmakers seek to repeal bathhouse ban
Current policy enacted in 1980s in response to AIDS crisis
New York City lawmakers are pushing to repeal a decades-old prohibition on adult bathhouses, arguing the regulation was created during the height of the AIDS crisis and no longer reflects modern science or public health practices.
Erik Bottcher, the openly gay New York state senator who represents the 47th District that includes the Upper West Side, Chelsea, Hell’s Kitchen and portions of the West Village in Manhattan, is leading the charge to remove the decades-old ban. (Openly gay state Assemblymember Tony Simone has sponsored the repeal bill in the New York State Assembly.) Bottcher sat down with the Washington Blade to discuss why he is advocating for more bathhouses in New York City.
“This is simply about ensuring that our public health policy is in line with today’s science,” he told the Blade. “The prohibition on adult bathhouses was put into place in 1985 at the height of the the AIDS epidemic, when there was very little information, very little treatment options, few treatment options, and great deal of fear. Science has changed. Treatment has changed, and the laws need to change too.”
The proposed legislation would direct the New York State Department of Health to repeal the 1985 regulation and establish a new framework for regulating bathhouses.
“Municipalities around the country and all around the world allow for adult bathhouses. There’s no reason why New York City alone needs to maintain this outdated prohibition. Our bill orders the New York State Department of Health to strike the 1985 regulation and replace it with a regulated public health framework that’s grounded in science.”
Under the proposal, bathhouses would operate as licensed and regulated facilities subject to health and safety standards. Backers of the proposal say that framework could also give public health officials greater access to people who may otherwise be difficult to reach through traditional health care settings.
“What the Department of Health would do is work with public health experts and advocates to develop a regulatory framework that allows licensed regulated facilities to operate under clear health and safety standards — and under this — it would allow public health agencies to have greater opportunities to provide STI and HIV prevention resources, connect people to testing and treatment, conduct instructions, and address legitimate health concerns.”
Supporters of the repeal also argue banning bathhouses does not eliminate the sexual activity that takes place in them or elsewhere. Instead, they say, it pushes those activities into the shadows, where public health officials have fewer opportunities to provide life-saving services that include STI and HIV testing.
“This is also about a safer alternative than pushing activity into unregulated settings where there’s little opportunity for public health engagement because these activities are happening, but they’re happening in the shadows,” Bottcher continued. “We know that the best public health policy is to establish clear public safe public health guidelines that allow for public health intervention.”
Demetre Daskalakis, a physician and longtime HIV prevention advocate who has worked to create sexual healthcare opportunities in bathhouses, also worked with Bottcher on the proposal.
Daskalakis was a high level Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employee until 2025, when he left federal health landscape after the Trump-Vance administration ousted then-CDC Director Susan Monarez. There he worked as director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases and was director of the Division of HIV Prevention at the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention.
Daskalakis explained his experience has shown him the potential for these spaces to become points of contact for people who do not regularly access traditional health care.
“I’ve seen what happens when you push sex into the underground,” he said. “From my perspective, this is a great opportunity to be able to reach people who really will not come to normal clinical care and won’t go to normal routine places for testing or screening.”
“As a public health person, I look at it as a great opportunity,” added Daskalakis. “If there’s like regulation of those venues, and if there’s like a prevention plan that sort of sprouts in those places with really solid public health and clinical partners, I think it’s a great opportunity for public health good.”
Daskalakis said a regulated bathhouse could offer more than HIV and STI testing, potentially creating spaces where people could access prevention medications and other health services.
“The bottom line is if there is a good relationship between the government and the venues, we can develop spaces in the venues to actually deliver services,” he said. “It’s not just infectious disease services — I mean yes, you can do HIV testing, STI testing. You can provide doxypep and pre-exposure prophylaxis for people who are HIV negative and at risk for HIV.
“As an example, at Callen-Lorde Community Health Center (in New York City), where I’m the chief medical officer, we developed a prevention pack in a very low threshold way. We gave people enough doxypep and prep to get through Pride. You can also have Narcan and other things to reduce the risk of overdose.”
Daskalakis said that approach reflects what public health should be striving for: meeting the community where they are.
“If you have this sort of relationship with the government that’s not antagonistic, and the government, as New York is one to do, provides some regulatory oversight to these venues, I think what you’re going to have is a place that supports LGBTQ culture — which also which does include sexuality, and also creates a platform to be able to do like very solid prevention work.”
The public health landscape surrounding HIV has changed dramatically since the bathhouse regulation was adopted, Daskalakis said, pointing to advances in treatment and prevention.
“The bottom line is that HIV treatment and prevention have really converged. If you are someone living with HIV and you’re on HIV medicines and your viral load is undetectable, you don’t transmit HIV. That’s called undetectable is equal to untransmittable, or U = U. People who are on prep also have very low risk of acquiring HIV, and so you know the world is very different,” he said.
“Back in the 80s, when there was no way to impact transmission of HIV because we didn’t have effective ways to prevent it — or didn’t know very much about it at that point. It’s a very different world where we know a lot about HIV and have a lot of tools to be able to prevent transmission. Same with STIs,” added Daskalakis. “If you create a holistic strategy for prevention that is sex positive and aligned to these venues, you’re going to prevent HIV and STIs. Period.”
For supporters of the legislation, that public health argument is central to the effort to repeal the ban. Bottcher also sees the proposal as a way to restore LGBTQ community spaces at a time when many queer venues have disappeared and social interaction increasingly takes place online.
“In this era of social isolation created by social media and streaming services, people are desperate for third spaces,” Bottcher said. “Places for people to come together in person, to be together in person. That’s what this would help provide.”
Daskalakis echoed Bottcher’s point that bathhouses could transform from underground, tabooed spaces into venues that combine sexual health services with broader LGBTQ culture.
“When you make them illegal, they become seedy and dark. When you make them something that is allowed, they actually then become sites that may have sex on premises but also support other sorts of cultural things, and in a universe where people are trying to make LGBT folks seem invisible, creating a safe space for them is exactly what we need right now.”
That community-space argument is also tied to health disparities, Bottcher said, arguing that greater access to health education and prevention services could help people who are less likely to seek care through traditional medical settings.
“Creating opportunities for in-person public health education, prevention, treatment that will help improve health outcomes when you push people into less safe settings without any opportunities for education, prevention tools, or treatment. That’s when we see these disparities, these health disparities grow. So it’s very important that we be laser focused on opportunities to address these disparities and reduce them.”
He continued, explaining the proposed change is ultimately about updating public health policy as medical science evolves, just as other practices are updated when new information comes out.
“This is a matter of an outdated public health regulation and the government has a responsibility to continually revisit its public health regulation and ensure that they’re in line with modern day science,” Bottcher said. “Science and healthcare are continually evolving, and the HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment landscape has changed tremendously in the last few years. Our public health regulations need to keep pace with science.”
For LGBTQ New Yorkers who lived through the AIDS crisis, however, changing the policy could carry a different meaning.
Bottcher says the experiences of those who lived through the epidemic — one that killed nearly 300,000 gay men since the 1980s — should inform how any new system is implemented, rather than being dismissed.
“These are in order to help prevent the spread of HIV and AIDS and other STIs,” Bottcher said. “We have to bring people engaging in these activities out of the shadows and into safe settings that provide the opportunity for public health entities to engage with education, treatment, prevention — that’s what this would do.”
Daskalakis said those concerns should be approached through what he described as trauma-informed care.
“My response is that of trauma-informed care,” Daskalakis said. “We have totally been through it, but we need to sort of move past the trauma and realize that the science has changed. I’s not it’s not the ’80s anymore, but we definitely need to look at those folks who have gone through the experience (of the HIV/AIDS crisis) to make sure that what we’re building, from a public health perspective, are effective programs.”
“There’s a great opportunity to learn from folks with experience rather than to alienate them,” he added.
Bottcher also pointed out this policy revision and effort to bring regulations in line with modern science is not only happening in New York. Multiple other cities across the U.S. have moved away from bathhouse prohibitions.
“Minneapolis just passed their ordinance in June,” he said. “San Francisco, despite the fact that they repealed their prohibition some years ago, they are still working to change the policy … However, around the country, even in red states, they have bathhouses … and they haven’t presented a detriment to public health in any way.”
The proposed change could also revive a part of New York’s LGBTQ cultural history, Bottcher said.
“Bathhouses were a big part of gay culture for decades. We all know the legendary stories of Bette Midler and Barry Manilow performing at the Continental Baths. I envision a resurgence of bathhouse culture that includes things like live music, arts, and entertainment. So it’s exciting to think about.”
And if that resurgence happens, Bottcher already has a dream performer in mind to be the first to take the stage.
“Oh, that’s such a good question … Cher.”
Daskalakis picked a similarly essential female singer of gay culture that he’d like to see in the bathhouses of today.
“I feel like my list could be so long, but I think that would be a great place for Madonna.”
The debate over New York’s bathhouse regulation ultimately reflects a broader question about how public health policy should respond as science, medicine, and LGBTQ communities change.
For Bottcher, regulation, rather than prohibition, would give health officials more opportunities to provide prevention and treatment while allowing LGBTQ people to gather openly.
For Daskalakis, the central lesson from his extensive healthcare work in bathhouses is that pushing sexual activity underground will make public health outreach more difficult — the opposite of what the government and healthcare providers should be doing.
“The opportunity to create safe spaces means that we’ll have more opportunities to reach people, not just for public health, but for so many other things … The strategy of banning things that are natural really doesn’t tend to help you very much. It ends up creating misalignment between the community and policymakers.”
U.S. Military/Pentagon
Hegseth uses transphobic slur while campaigning for Iowa congressman
Defense Secretary was speaking in support of Republican Zach Nunn
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday used an anti-transgender slur while campaigning for U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn (R-Iowa), drawing attention to the Trump-Vance administration’s ongoing efforts to restrict trans people from serving in the military.
“At the Department of War, we do training, not t***nies,” Hegseth said, according to the Iowa Capital Dispatch, which first reported the remarks.
Hegseth made the comment at JR’s SouthPork Ranch at the Iowa State Fair, where he joined Nunn for a rally. The remark came as Hegseth discussed his priorities for the military and argued that the department’s focus should be on military readiness rather than issues of race or gender.
In the same speech, Hegseth claimed that the military operates without regard to race or gender.
“Training, lethality, accountability, discipline, readiness — the bedrock of what it means to be an American warrior — is the only focus of our department,” Hegseth said. “Colorblind, gender-neutral, merit-based. That’s it.”
Hegseth’s remarks come as the Trump-Vance administration continues its efforts to restrict trans people from serving in the military.
Since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, his administration has moved to remove trans service members from the military while also taking steps to prevent trans people from joining.
Trump signed “Prioritizing Military Excellence and Readiness” in January 2025, which attempts to bars trans individuals from serving or enlisting in the U.S. military, citing “military readiness” as the reason, despite there being no factual basis for the ban. The policy has been challenged by LGBTQ advocates and military service members, who argue there is no evidence that trans service members undermine military readiness.
Earlier this year, Hegseth made headlines again over the administration’s contradictory approach to hormone therapy, as the military moved to restrict gender-affirming hormone treatment for trans service members while encouraging cisgender military members to receive hormone therapy for “low T,” or testosterone.
The administration’s policy has faced a series of legal challenges from trans service members and advocacy groups.
In June, a federal appeals court panel ruled the administration could not discharge the trans service members who brought one of the lawsuits challenging the ban while their case continues, providing a moment of relief amid the administration’s ongoing efforts to restrict trans military service. The Trump-Vance administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review that ruling and, in the meantime, keep it from taking effect.
The Washington Blade reached out to the Pentagon for comment on Hegseth’s use of the slur, but the department did not push back on his choice of words.
“We have nothing further to add beyond the secretary’s remarks,” the statement read.
Illinois
Chicago’s LGBTQ+ youth: Why their zip code still matters
South and West side residents face longer commutes to access affirming services
On Chicago’s West Side, the ballroom scene doubles as a lifeline for LGBTQ+ youth.
Every week, teens are drawn into TaskForce Prevention & Community Services for its popular Vogue School. Once there, they then have access to a variety of resources like housing support, a food pantry, fresh produce, and mental health services.
For many, it’s the only affirming environment in their neighborhood.
“We’re located here in Austin, and there isn’t really any other LGBTQ+ youth program like us on the West Side,” said Reyna Ortiz, program director at the nonprofit. “It’s special because young people don’t have to go Downtown or to the North side to feel like they belong here.”
Ortiz’s perspective underscores a long-standing reality that access to LGBTQ+ youth resources often depends on your zip code.
The city’s largest LGBTQ+ institutions have a prominence on the North Side, which is home to LGBTQ+ enclaves like Northalsted and Andersonville. This can leave queer youth on the South and West sides having to face longer commutes and other barriers when trying to access affirming services.
And when queer youth don’t have these kinds of resources nearby, it can create gaps that shape their health, education and economic futures. But North Side-based institutions—as well as smaller LGBTQ+ orgs on the South and West sides and some citywide organizations—are working to fill these gaps.
Two of Chicago’s largest LGBTQ+ organizations, the Center on Halsted and Howard Brown Health’s Broadway Youth Center, are both situated on the North Side.
At Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted St., youth and family programming spans drop-in spaces, leadership and mentoring opportunities and support groups for LGBTQ+ youth. statewide LGBTQ+ hotline provides additional access for young people beyond its Lakeview base.
CEO Joli Robinson said the Center has been intentional about expanding youth programming beyond the North Side through partnerships with other LGBTQ+ organizations and by introducing programs to its South Side location, the Center on Cottage Grove, 6323 S. Cottage Grove Ave.
“A week or so ago, we started our first drop-in space at the Center on Cottage Grove, which has been a priority for us over the past year and a half that I’ve been with the organization,” Robinson said. “We also partner with organizations like Chicago House and Life is Work, … and work to strengthen relationships with the GSAs in schools and PFLAG organizations that exist on the South and West sides.”
These kinds of collaborations are crucial to reaching LGBTQ+ youth in all neighborhoods of Chicago, Robinson said.
“These are organizations that they may already have a strong relationship with, and by deepening our partnerships with them, we’re leveraging the expertise of people who are in these neighborhoods to make sure we’re working in collaboration,” Robinson said.
The Broadway Youth Center, 1023 W. Irving Park Road, serves LGBTQ+ youth ages 12 to 24, particularly those experiencing homelessness or housing instability. It provides integrated medical and mental health care, sexual and reproductive health services, case management and mental wellness support.
The Broadway Youth Center’s drop-in space also offers meals, clothing, showers and other essentials, while cultural programming like art and dance provides additional affirming outets.
Both organizations state their programs are open to youth citywide and emphasize outreach through hotlines, housing services and broader support networks.
Still, their physical bases on the North Side mean that young people in other parts of the city often face barriers to access them.
“And we don’t want transportation to be a barrier for individuals,” Robinson said. “We don’t want location to be a barrier for individuals to participate in some of our programming, so it really is incumbent upon us to be very strategic and think creatively about how we engage the full city.”
TaskForce is among the organizations working to fill these gaps.
Based in Austin on the West Side, the nonprofit offers youth services that are culturally specific, including housing support, food access, and sexual health testing.
Equally as important is TaskForce’s Vogue School, which uses voguing and ballroom culture to strengthen community and encourage self expression.
“Ballroom is important because it’s the one place where they can showcase their talents, where they can showcase who they are without any type of restrictions, without any type of judgment,” Ortiz said. “Ballroom and vogue are how our kids see themselves celebrated. It’s culture, it’s community, and it’s also leadership development.”
Ortiz said TaskForce also provides a steady presence in a neighborhood where resources are limited.
“We are consistent, we are here, we are present and we are open,” Ortiz said.
TaskForce is also home to PrEP 4 Teens, a citywide program focused on HIV prevention and sexual health among youth. While it’s open to teens across Chicago, staff said they are especially focused on reaching those on the South and West Sides who often face the steepest barriers to access.
“We’re looking to collaborate more with agencies, both in the south and west side of Chicago,” said program lead David Gauna. “We know those are the young people who need us most.”
That focus reflects the larger imbalance in the city.
“It’s about equitable access,” said Jim Pickett, one of the program’s organizers. “And so there’s a real lack of equity throughout Chicago, and we could certainly have a much more equitable distribution of opportunities.”
PrEP4Teens was shaped by youth themselves, Gauna added.
“Young people created this,” Gauna said. “They decided the colors, the imagery, the language. They said, ‘We don’t want this to be medical. We want this to be something fun. We want this to be engaging.’”
That youth-driven design is what makes it resonate, said Skai Underwood, who also runs PrEP4Teens.
“We try to meet youth where they are, and culture is part of that,” Underwood said.
Schools can also play a part in filling these gaps on the South and West sides.
“I think that there’s a great opportunity for schools to be like the glue that brings everything together,” said Julio Flores, program director for the Alliance, which promotes school safety for LGBTQ+ youth through advocacy, education, youth programming and research.
For some students, he said, school-based GSAs are the only affirming space they have.
“A GSA can be the only affirming space a young person has,” Flores said.
And those spaces can change a student’s trajectory, he added.
“When young people can lead a GSA, they’re not just building community, they’re building the skills they’ll use in college, in jobs and in life,” Flores said.
The gaps in geography don’t just shape whether young queer people can find community. They also shape whether they’re set up to succeed.
At TaskForce, Ortiz said success often begins with visibility. Young people who first came in for the Vogue School or drop-in services have gone on to train as medical assistants and phlebotomists.
“Some of our youth that frequent the Vogue School start to volunteer. Then we hire and train them, and now they’re building careers,” Ortiz said.
For youth involved with PrEP 4 Teens, growth is just as tangible.
Gauna said teens were engaged in a program that empowered them to build the look, feel and voice of a PrEP awareness campaign. By the end of the cohort, youth who had once been too shy to speak were leading workshops, presenting artwork and giving speeches.
“They started off super shy… and by the end they were showcasing what this program had done for them — not just to take charge of their sexual health, but to feel a lot more confident in themselves,” Gauna said.
Pickett tied those individual transformations back to the bigger picture.
“So many queer young people of color don’t necessarily have many safe spaces throughout the day in their lives,” he said. “Providing these opportunities to engage with other young people and develop their skills and have fun and be fully who they are is so empowering. It sets them up for success.”
Robinson of Center on Halsted said the link between geography and opportunity often comes down to whether young people have their most immediate needs met close to home. Without food, shelter or a safe place to connect, long-term success could remain out of reach.
“For people to really have the safety and security they need to think about economic development or to be provided with a stronger footing and foundation to focus on maybe college or career, they need to have some of their most basic needs met,” Robinson said.
This article was originally published by the Windy City Times and is part of a national initiative exploring how geography, policy, and local conditions influence access to opportunity. Find more stories at economicopportunitylab.com/
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