David Witter

It is a cool summer Sunday, and as the 2006 Pride Parade is about to kick off, a man wearing fishnet stockings, a feather boa, a bra and ten-inch-high platform silver shoes climbs onto a rainbow-flag float. No surprise. But as you continue to look around you see something really unusual: employees from about a hundred Chicago-area banks, supermarket chains, car dealerships, retail stores, restaurants, bars, airlines, utilities and city offices are also scrambling to get onto their company-sponsored floats. Furthermore, all of this is happening under the watchful eye of smiling Chicago Police officers and most of the city's major media.

Another successful Pride Week has passed and the heavily promoted Gay Games are about to begin, yet thirty-eight years ago the situation was much different. Many businesses refused to hire openly gay employees. Instead of putting on beads, local police departments were raiding gay bars while daily newspapers printed the names of the raid victims the next morning.

While the events of the Civil Rights, Anti-Vietnam War, and Woman's Liberation Movements have been dramatized and documented in thousands of major feature films, network documentaries, books and even TV sitcoms, the historical events of the Gay Rights Movement have been relegated to art-house films and small press books. Chicago's gay movement lacks a singular uniting event such as New York's Stonewall Riots, but it still has its share of smaller, unified protests that became a catalyst for change. Most of these occurred in the aftermath of the raids on gay bars.

"In the old days, as late as 1965, 66, 67, 68 and 69, bars and bathhouses were raided all the time," Chuck Rodecker, the current owner of Touche, the city's oldest leather bar, says. "What was even worse is that the next day the names of the people 'arrested' would be printed in the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times."

"Dancing with another man wasn't technically illegal, but was considered `lewd and lascivious behavior,'" Gary Chichester, co-founder of the Chicago Gay Alliance, says. "So it was under this guise that the police were allowed to come in and arrest the patrons, even though they had technically committed no crime."

Chicago's gay activism began in 1924, when Henry Gerber, who has been called "the father of the gay movement," organized the Society For Human Rights. Dedicated to "those who deviated from the sexual norms," it was located at 1710 North Crilly Court in the Old Town neighborhood. The organization existed peacefully until Gerber decided to move to an apartment on Oak Street. This apartment was raided, Gerber was arrested and the documents and literature from the organization were confiscated and destroyed. Today, Chicago's Gerber/Hart Library, which specializes in gay, lesbian and transgender literature, is named in his honor.

Throughout the 1930s, forties and fifties, Chicago officials seemed to develop a certain tolerance for clandestine gay activities. Bars like The Dill Pickle Club, The Bally Hoo Café and Charmer's, which only recently closed, catered to a gay, lesbian and transgender clientele. The best-known event of that era was the annual Halloween Drag Ball or Finne's Ball. Held at the Coliseum Annex at 38th and Michigan, the guise of disguise not only attracted members of the openly gay community, but many "closeted" business leaders and city officials.

This all changed in the mid-1960s. "The Encyclopedia of Chicago" states that, "As Chicago's lesbian and gay population grew larger and more visible, municipal authorities launched vigorous campaigns to suppress it. Raids on lesbian and gay bars became more frequent, and thousands of women and men were arrested, both in the bars and on the streets, for being inmates of `disorderly houses' (a label the authorities applied to lesbian and gay bars) or for violating the municipal ordinance against cross-dressing. Although Illinois became the first state in the nation to legalize private, consensual, homosexual relations in 1961, the authorities remained intent on eliminating public expressions of homosexuality; the local media assisted in this endeavor by publishing the names and addresses of those arrested in raids."

The most famous of these raids occurred at The Fun Lounge. Also referred to as Louis Gauger's (he was the owner) at 2340 North Mannheim Road, the bar was located in an unincorporated area between River Grove and Forest Park, suburbs that were known for their strong syndicate ties.

In 1964, Republican Sheriff Richard Ogilvie saw an issue that could unite conservatives (sound familiar?) and help him eventually become governor. On April 25, the Fun Lounge was raided, and 109 patrons were arrested. On April 26, the names of eight men, including a high-school teacher who resigned the next day, were printed in the Chicago Tribune.

In response to this, Ira Jones and others founded Mattachine Midwest. The Mattachine Newsletter, dedicated to providing legal advice and information within the community, became the first gay publication in the city. Nevertheless, the raids continued.

In September of 1965, Mattachine's newsletter wrote, "Chicago's homosexual community once again faces the danger of a jittery police department and politicians as election time draws near.... Heralded by the Chicago Tribune, a series of raids has shaken the homosexual community to the core."

Four decades later, Rodecker echoes those same words. "In 1965, '66 and '67, bars were continually raided, especially around election time. At the end of the sixties, the bathhouses in the Lincoln and Wacker Hotel were also raided, and the Tribune and Sun-Times kept publishing names."

During this same period many homosexuals in the Clark and Diversey area were also taken off the street and arrested on charges of loitering. Working pro bono, lawyers like Pearl Hart, (after whom Gerber/Hart is also named) Ira Jones, Robert Basker, Rene Hanover and others worked within the legal system to chip away at injustices in the community. An early victory came in May of 1968 as a gay bar known as "The Trip," at 27 East Ohio Street, was raided. Citing "same sex dancing" the bar was closed and their license was suspended. Later that year, The Trip reopened after the Illinois State Supreme Court ruled that the license of a bar cannot be suspended during the period a license is being contested.

In 1969, students and faculty at the University of Chicago organized Chicago's Gay Liberation Front. Advertising in publications like The Chicago Maroon, they held open meetings and dances on campus.

"The organization was loosely tied to the University of Chicago," Chichester says. "It helped us to realize what we could do if we put our minds together."

In 1971 Chichester and others founded the Chicago Gay Alliance, an organization aimed at promoting gay rights not only in the legal and social worlds, but also as a local political force. Finally, in 1973 Hanover helped to overturn the laws against cross-dressing. Known as the "zipper laws," they stated that anyone wearing three items of clothing not from their own gender was subject to arrest.

If these laws were still on the books today, police would have had to arrest tens of thousands of people at the 2006 Pride Parade. Instead, they are content to smile and wave as floats from many of the city's largest businesses make their way up Halsted.

"It's heartening to see organizations like Com Ed, the airlines, city offices and large banks participating in the parade and as sponsors of the Gay Games," Rodecker says. "Thirty years ago, unless you worked at Marshall Field's or were a hairdresser, you could lose your job if you said you were gay. It just shows how far we've come as a city and a community."

(2006-07-11)

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