“Don’t ever take our rights for granted,” Summit said. The ones that remain are not just important for socializing and having a good time, but are crucial in helping the community mobilize when it’s being attacked. “I could feel the history in those walls, the sadness in experience that gave them this outlet and led to having special places for women to feel safe.”
“There were women going to these bars for decades, and it was an honor to be around multiple generations at the bars,” Baim said. Renowned lesbian bars like Paris Dance and The Closet hosted blood drives and benefits during a time when many “were afraid to go and share glassware and be around people” at the height of the AIDS crisis, Baim said. Gay bars in some of their earliest days were where activists came together to mobilize, from fighting for marriage equality in more recent years to Summit’s “Gay $” project that combated AIDS discrimination by marking paper money to demonstrate the purchasing power of the queer community. “We need these spaces because they’re often the entry point for people first coming out, and a place where travelers can visit and know they’re welcome,” said Tracy Baim, an LGBTQ advocate, publisher of the Chicago Reader and founder of the Windy City Times, the leading Chicago LGBTQ publication for over three decades.
