Is the Center gay enough?

I am very confused about something that is very important to me, and, I hope, to the queer community. (What there is left of it!)

Millions of dollars were spent on the new Center On Halsted. Millions of dollars were given in donation to this extraordinary building for our community, which is supposed to be a model for other cities to emulate. We have an Olympic-size gym. We have a computer center for anyone to use at any time that the center is open. We have meeting rooms that are used for organizations and groups within the gay community. We have a building that, even with its hard edges and concrete walls, is a magnificent structure.

What confuses me, as one who fought at the Stonewall Riots and began a direction in the movement (there really was one, folks) that empowered us enough to be able to build such a magnificent structure is the fact that not only is the building inundated with straight mothers with their prams and strollers of single and twin babies taking it over for long conversational lunches bought at the Whole Foods that opens right onto the Center, but there is no designation anywhere on the building that it is for the LGBT community, not even a rainbow flag hugely hanging with pride and recognition from the front of the building, not even a teensy-weensy one.

What confuses me, as one who not only fought at Stonewall but also worked in the streets with queer youth (a segment of our community being catered to by the Center On Halsted) and as an active and even sometimes violent member of the Gay Liberation Front? We helped make this building possible, damn it, and nothing, not one thing, says the Center On Halsted is a queer center. It could be a center for battered women, a center for street people, a center for the disabled, a center for alcoholics and junkies only, a center of anything for that matter. There is no designation anywhere. Why not? Are we still so embarrassed about who we are that we cannot put our name on a building that is supposedly ours? If I go in there on a Saturday afternoon, I would never know it is for queer people. It really looks like a Center For Mothers With Babies, and not lesbian mothers either. Very straight mothers.

I get so angry when I walk into the Center. I get enraged, in fact. I use the building for my own recovery work as an addict. The Center kindly allows queer addicts and alcoholics to use its building, but I have to ask who dictates who gets to use it and who doesn’t. Quite frankly, I don’t like my space filled with straight moms and their babies.

Can’t we put up a huge flagpole, like one for the American flag outside City Hall, and hang an enormous, proud, colorful, identifying rainbow flag from the front of the Center? Why can’t we do this?

Do we still hate ourselves so much? Are we still so ashamed of ourselves so much? It would appear that way from the Center On Halsted. It’s a good space, but it’s not our space!

Roger Goodman
Chicago

It’s gay enough now!

What a wonderful sight!

It’s that huge colorful sign painted recently across the top of the first floor elevators (at the Center on Halsted):

“A lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender journey…celebrating, affirming and discovering possibilities”

Now when our LGBT community sees it, they smile, express happiness and say, ‘The Center finally got out of the closet.” Previously, many were disappointed that there were no gay flags or signs spelling out LGBT on or in this magnificent structure—a building that is there because of the longtime dream for such a center. It is there because of the determination, the dedication and the years of very hard work of the community.

I understand that there are rumors that there might be tall flagpoles in front of the Center with four flags—federal, state, city and gay. Hope this is true. It will further tell any visitor, passersby and the world that this is Chicago’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center on Halsted.

Phil Hannema
Chicago