The struggle that produced Pride
Before Pride was about celebration, it was about protest. It was, and still is, about human dignity refusing to cower in the face of hateful opposition. It has taken on weightier relevance today, with the institutional silencing of LGBTQ history and the concerted targeting of transgender people and drag performers.
Like that of many big cities, the history of Chicago features major mile markers in the movement for acceptance and enfranchisement. It was here where the first gay rights organization in the United States was founded, by Chicagoan Henry Gerber in 1924.
But the most potent decades in the LGBTQ community's fight in Chicago came in the 1970s and '80s, with the early years of the AIDS crisis and the Stonewall riots in New York serving as major catalysts for the urgency of queer Americans to be seen as human. Advocacy, including from Mayor Harold Washington, and pressure from activists led the Chicago City Council to pass the Human Rights Ordinance in 1988 and include sexual orientation in prohibiting discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodation. It was a watershed moment in the city's history because it granted queer Chicagoans equality under the law.
These photos of the struggle for equality and justice, curated by Vintage Tribune editor Marianne Mather, depict the passion and persistence of everyday Chicagoans.
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CNN
2 hours ago
- CNN
An Iowa law rolling back trans civil rights protections in the state has taken effect. Here's what to know
An Iowa law removing gender identity as a protected class from the state's civil rights code took effect Tuesday, the first action of its kind in the United States. The new rollback of protections is the latest attack on trans people in the US and part of a broader movement across conservative-led states working to restrict LGBTQ rights. GOP Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed the Republican-backed measure earlier this year, saying it 'safeguards the rights of women and girls.' But advocates worry about what they call the dangerous, far-reaching consequences for the trans community in the absence of state legal protections. 'It's really a dark moment in our history,' said Democratic Rep. Aime Wichtendahl, Iowa's first openly transgender lawmaker. 'Our government in the state of Iowa has been reducing rights across the board this past decade.' The new law marks the end to an 18-year legacy of civil rights protection for trans people in Iowa – a stark departure from the state's history of inclusive gender policies. 'The fundamental fact is, we were freer 10 years ago than we are today,' Wichtendahl said. While there are still federal and other anti-discrimination protections in place, President Donald Trump and conservative allies continue to take steps to chip away at trans rights since he returned to office. A state's civil rights code safeguards people from discrimination, often based on characteristics like religion, race and, in many cases, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity. Gender identity is no longer on the list of protected classes in Iowa. Iowa's new law also attempts to redefine gender as a synonym for biological sex, a shift that disregards contemporary medical and psychological understandings of gender identity. Under the law, transgender people are barred from correcting their gender marker on birth certificates, so their identifying documentation will show the sex they were assigned at birth. Transgender and nonbinary people in Iowa now face increased legal uncertainty, experts say. 'This isn't some nebulous law that won't really impact people,' said Max Mowitz, the executive director of LGBTQ advocacy group One Iowa. Without state civil rights protections, individuals who are fired, denied housing or refused medical treatment based on their gender identity have a narrower path to legal recourse. 'Folks would be able to discriminate against us if (we) were trying to get a hotel room, or go to a coffee shop, or even open a line of credit,' he said. Having identifying documents with gender markers that don't appear to match how a person is presenting themself could foster an uncomfortable, sometimes dangerous, situation for people who are forced to out themselves as trans to strangers. As a trans Iowan, Mowitz said he's been patted down by TSA because 'something was on my driver's license that didn't look the way that they thought it should.' Naomi Goldberg, executive director of the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit think tank providing resources to the LGBTQ community, said trans and nonbinary people will have a hard time going about daily life because of the new law. It will also increase the already high risk of harassment and violence for trans Americans, Goldberg added. More than a dozen states, mostly conservative, have never added gender identity as a protected class to their civil rights laws, according to data from the Movement Advancement Project. Meanwhile, 31 states prohibit some form of discrimination against people based on their gender identity. And bills in those states have not moved to strike gender identity from their civil rights statutes, Goldberg said. But protections for LGBTQ people vary greatly by state. In Texas, the American Civil Liberties Union is currently tracking 88 bills it says are anti-LGBTQ that have been introduced during the 2025 legislative session — more than any other state. By contrast, the ACLU is tracking zero in Vermont. At the federal level, new legislation and lawsuits targeting trans people have increased across the US. The Supreme Court could agree this week to hear arguments in the backlog of cases dealing with trans issues — putting transgender rights front and center for a second year in a row. The high court handed conservative states a win this Pride Month when it upheld Tennessee's ban on some medical treatments for transgender minors. Trump, who campaigned on ending 'transgender lunacy,' has taken steps to dismantle the Biden administration's efforts to be more inclusive of Americans' gender identification. He has signed a flurry of executive orders targeting trans people — including declaring there are only two genders, banning transgender women from participating in most women's sports, and barring transgender service members from serving in the military. Trump earlier this year pushed Iowa to follow his lead from the orders and pass the bill to 'remove Radical Gender Ideology from their Laws.' But trans people just want politicians to allow them to live freely, said Wichtendahl, the Iowa lawmaker. 'The ability to live our lives and be treated equally under the law and rights and dignity, to not have the government be this pernicious voice dictating who we are every step of the way,' Wichtendahl said, 'that's all we've ever asked for.'
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
LGBT artists decry Supreme Court ruling at rainy London Pride parade
LGBT artists including singer and actor Olly Alexander decried the Supreme Court ruling on the definition of a woman and expressed fears trans people are being 'villainised more than ever' at a rainy Pride in London parade. Writer Shon Faye and the lead actor in the BBC drama What It Feels Like For A Girl, Ellis Howard, also criticised the judgment. The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan shouted 'happy pride' and thousands people started to walk through central London, led by a more than a dozen motorcyclists from LGBT groups. There were shouts for 'trans rights now' as the engines roared and rain started to fall on Saturday afternoon. American pop singer Chaka Khan is headlining the event that saw around 500 organisations file from Hyde Park Corner, through Piccadilly Circus, and on to Whitehall Place. Former Years And Years singer Alexander told the PA news agency: 'Trans people right now, they need our support and love more than ever, they're being villainised, demonised in the press, by a lot of the media, and trans people they're just like us… they're you, they're me. 'They deserve the same respect, the same rights, the same privileges, same opportunities, and that's why pride is so important this year.' The solo artist and Eurovision 2024 contestant added: 'There's been a real backlash against DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) policies and that's been going on for years, and I think we're in a bit of a swing, that's going against where we were maybe five years ago. 'We've had the Supreme Court ruling and I feel like a lot of trans people are scared, rightfully scared, they don't understand… what their lives are going to look like.' In April the Supreme Court ruled the words 'woman' and 'sex' in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex. Before the march began Shon Faye, author of Love in Exile and The Transgender Issue, said 'we've just seen an unprecedented attack on queer rights and trans rights across the world'. She told PA: 'For the trans community in particular here in the UK, we've seen an onslaught of misinformation, attacks in the media, and unfortunately the roll back of human rights in the courts. 'I think (pride) is more important than ever – I think a lot of trans people have been made to feel afraid in public space and pride this year is about taking back public space, and showing what we're not going to be silenced, and we're not going to be intimidated.' Asked what she hoped would change, Faye said: 'I feel like it's not a one year change deal… movements move in generations, I think what we have to do now is accept the reality of the situation we're in and we have to work together with other groups, within the LGBT community and outside it, to really start forming strong coalitions in order to fight this stuff. 'I think where we're going in the UK, unfortunately this rightward turn is going to continue for some time. The people together are powerful.' She added: 'I think the reality is what some of these attacks are designed to do is exhaust us… we become very focused and frightened and then sometimes it's easier to retreat in and the reality is we need to do the opposite of that – we need to be willing to work with people who aren't necessarily like us'. Howard played Paris Lees in the BBC dramatisation of her memoir and, like Alexander and Faye, was supporting trans rights charity Not A Phase at the parade. He told PA that 'we're in an incredibly precarious political time' and said pride this year is 'more important than ever'. The actor added: 'I think it's so, so important that we show up as queers, as allies, and we celebrate. Joy is an act of resistance. 'I hope it shows queers of all ages that we stand with you, we are for you, and we love you'. He added: 'The recent Supreme Court ruling concerns me, the lack of proper tangible support from our Government concerns me, the lack of funding to amazing organisations like Not A Phase really, really concerns me. 'But honestly, I look around, I see stuff like this, I see what grassroots activism can do, and the power that that can have'. A YouGov poll released ahead of the event found 67% of people in the UK believe the country is inclusive to LGBTQ+ people, and 60% would not welcome a shift towards more negative attitudes. Simon Blake, chief executive of Stonewall, which commissioned the survey, said despite the findings 'we know many LGBTQ+ people do not feel this in their neighbourhoods and workplaces'. He added: 'In policy terms, the reality is different too. 'The UK has dropped sharply down the global leaderboard for LGBTQ+ rights.' This year the UK fell to its lowest-ever ranking for LGBTI human rights, an annual report found. This was because of the Supreme Court ruling and subsequent UK Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) guidance, said the ILGA-Europe's Rainbow Map, which has run since 2009.
CNN
9 hours ago
- CNN
Why Roberts and Gorsuch may decide the Supreme Court's blockbuster transgender sports case
The Supreme Court's decision Thursday to weigh in on transgender sports bans will put two conservative justices in the spotlight in coming months, both because of what they have said in past cases involving LGBTQ rights – and what they haven't. Only two justices have written majority opinions involving transgender Americans – Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch – and both avoided revealing their thoughts about the sports cases last month when, in a blockbuster ruling, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee's ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy for trans youth. For the second time in as many years the high court will wrestle with a heated legal dispute involving young transgender Americans at a time when they are facing severe political backlash driven in part by President Donald Trump and conservative states. The court agreed to hear appeals in two related cases challenging laws in West Virginia and Idaho that ban transgender girls and women from competing on women's sports teams – including one that was filed by a middle school student at the time. While the court swerved around fundamental questions about trans rights in last month's decision in US v. Skrmetti, it will be far harder to do so in the sports cases. And that could put enormous focus on Roberts and Gorsuch. 'Even though the court ruled against the transgender plaintiffs in Skrmetti, it did not decide the larger and more important question of whether discrimination based on transgender status triggers more searching judicial review,' said Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown University Law Center. 'Everything,' Vladeck predicted, 'is going to come down to where Roberts and Gorsuch are.' In some ways, the Supreme Court's 6-3 decision on June 18 upholding Tennessee's ban on certain transgender care was limited. That opinion, written by Roberts, explicitly declined to decide if the law discriminated against transgender youth. Tennessee's policy, Roberts reasoned, instead drew boundaries based on age and medical procedures that were well within a state's power to regulate. That logic avoided thorny questions about whether the law violated the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause if it specifically targeted transgender minors for different treatment. Tennessee's law, Roberts wrote, 'classifies on the basis of age' and 'classifies on the basis of medical use.' But it will be more difficult for the court to duck those broader questions in the sports cases, several experts said. 'It is notable that the court seemed to go out of its way to avoid endorsing the idea that the law discriminated against transgender people and instead found that the Tennessee law had drawn lines based on age and medical diagnoses,' said Suzanne Goldberg, a Columbia Law School professor and an expert on gender and sexuality law. 'The new cases squarely present the discrimination questions in ways that will be hard to avoid,' she said. 'It's important,' she said, 'not to lose sight of the fact that these cases involve kids trying to make their way through school and life like every other kid.' Gorsuch, who was Trump's first nominee to the Supreme Court, joined the majority opinion in the Tennessee case but did not write separately to explain his position. His silence was significant given that one of the key arguments at stake was how – or whether – to apply the landmark 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County that he authored. In that decision, the court ruled that transgender workers are covered by federal protections against discrimination based on sex because discrimination against a transgender person is, by extension, necessarily also discrimination based on sex. The Biden administration and transgender teenagers fighting Tennessee's law asserted that the same logic should apply when it comes to gender identity care bans. But the court has never extended its reasoning in Bostock beyond the workplace, and the decision drew immediate and sharp criticism from the right at the time. John Bursch, a veteran Supreme Court litigator and senior counsel at the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom, predicted that both Roberts and Gorsuch will ultimately back the state bans on transgender people participating in sports that align with their gender identity given their votes in the Tennessee dispute. 'If they were in agreement that Tennessee's law did not discriminate based on gender identity, I would assume that both of them would come to the same conclusion here when it comes to sports,' Bursch said. 'But you never know for sure, and anytime that we go to the court, we assume that all nine justices are in play.' Alliance Defending Freedom is a co-counsel in both sports cases the Supreme Court agreed to hear. 'Our hope is that we would get a unanimous ruling to protect women's sports in favor of both West Virginia and Idaho in their laws,' Bursch added. Other members of the court's six-justice conservative wing – including two who are often decisive votes – have more clearly signaled their thoughts on anti-trans laws. In the Tennessee case, Justice Amy Coney Barrett penned a concurring opinion making clear that she opposed granting transgender status the same anti-discrimination protections that race and sex have under the 14th Amendment. She also was the only member of the court's majority that day to raise sports in an opinion. 'Beyond the treatment of gender dysphoria, transgender status implicates several other areas of legitimate regulatory policy – ranging from access to restrooms to eligibility for boys' and girls' sports teams,' Barrett wrote in an opinion joined by Justice Clarence Thomas. 'If laws that classify based on transgender status necessarily trigger heightened scrutiny, then the courts will inevitably be in the business of 'closely scrutiniz(ing) legislative choices' in all these domains.' Justice Samuel Alito wrote a concurrence arguing against extending Bostock's reasoning to constitutional cases. During oral arguments over Tennessee's law in December, Justice Brett Kavanaugh – another justice who is sometimes seen as a swing vote – mentioned sports as he peppered the lawyer for the Biden administration with skeptical questions about her position. 'If you prevail here,' asked Kavanaugh, who has frequently noted that he coached his daughters' basketball teams, 'what would that mean for women's and girls' sports in particular?' 'Would transgender athletes have a constitutional right, as you see it, to play in women's and girls' sports, basketball, swimming, volleyball, track, et cetera, notwithstanding the competitive fairness and safety issues that have been vocally raised by some female athletes?' Kavanaugh pressed. In response, then-Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar attempted to distinguish the sports cases from Tennessee's law. She noted that some lower courts had already held that the sports bans triggered a higher level of judicial scrutiny. Kavanaugh also dissented from Gorsuch's decision in Bostock. The court's three liberals dissented in the Tennessee case, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor writing that the majority had pulled back from 'meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most' and instead 'abandons transgender children and their families to political whims.' In the West Virginia case, then Gov. Jim Justice, a Republican, signed the 'Save Women's Sports Act' in 2021, banning transgender women and girls from participating on public school sports teams consistent with their gender identity. Becky Pepper-Jackson, a rising sixth grader at the time, who was 'looking forward to trying out for the girls' cross-country team,' filed a lawsuit alleging that the ban violated federal law and the Constitution. The Richmond-based 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that West Virginia's ban violated Pepper-Jackson's rights under Title IX, a federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex at schools that receive federal aid. The court also revived her constitutional challenge of the law. Two years ago, the Supreme Court denied West Virginia's emergency docket request to let it fully enforce its ban. Alito and Thomas dissented from that decision, though the focus of their objection was that neither the Supreme Court nor the 4th Circuit had offered an explanation for their decisions. In Idaho, Republican Gov. Brad Little signed the state's sports ban in 2020. Lindsay Hecox, then a freshman at Boise State University, sued days later, saying that she intended to try out for the women's track and cross-country teams and alleging the law violated the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. A federal district court blocked the law's enforcement against Hecox months later and the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that decision last year. Idaho appealed to the Supreme Court in July. State officials in West Virginia and Idaho praised the court's decision to take up the cases. 'Idaho was the first state to step out and ban boys and men from competing with girls and women in organized athletics,' Little said on Thursday, describing the law as a 'common sense' policy intended to 'protect the American way of life.' Lawyers for the transgender athletes described the laws as discriminatory and harmful. The Supreme Court will likely hear arguments in the cases later this year or in early 2026 and is expected to hand down a decision by the end of June.
