GARY CHICHESTER

CHICAGO GAY LIBERATION

Gary Chichester (left) and Patrick by unknown, 1976. Collection of Gary Chichester.

The LGBTQ History Project is making progress documenting the gay liberation revolution in the state of Illinois. So far, we have featured: Murray Edelman, Albert Williams, Jeff Graubart, and Maher Ahmad. Now we bring you Gary Chichester, who was in Chicago Gay Liberation with Murray and Albert.

Gary Chichester is a lifelong LGBTQ+ activist and community organizer whose work helped lay the foundation for Chicago’s modern queer movement. Born and raised in Chicago, Gary came out as a teenager in the early 1960s and quickly became immersed in the fight for gay rights. After a brief stint in Los Angeles, he returned to Chicago and became involved with the Gay Liberation Front before co-founding the Chicago Gay Alliance. He was instrumental in organizing the city’s first permitted Pride march in 1971 and later helped establish one of the country’s earliest gay community centers. Over the decades, Gary has remained a steadfast advocate for queer history, health, and visibility, ensuring Chicago’s LGBTQ+ legacy is remembered and celebrated.

— August Bernadicou, Executive Director of The LGBTQ History Project

“My dad was a musician, and he traveled around a bit. He passed away when I was in my early teens. Good family. I have two sisters. I grew up in Old Town, which is similar to downtown, located just north of it. That’s where we lived when I was born, and then we moved to the northwest side suburbs.

I always had a hankering for looking at males, especially after my dad died. There was no male figure in my life. I came out when I was very young, and I ran away from home at the age of 17. I was looking for something, but I didn’t know what it was. I was confused. I flew out to California, and as soon as I landed, I seemed to know who I was. That was back in 1964.

I went to Hollywood. I was living with some very nice guys. It kind of worked out for me. I was trying to earn a living in a legitimate manner. I was not a hooker because I was too fussy, but there was this one hustler out on Hollywood Boulevard who I always thought was kind of interesting. I had something for him. Finally, after a few months of seeing him around and everything—we're actually on our way to his house, and I thought, ‘Oh, wow, finally.’ I got lucky, and that's when the police pulled up and arrested me for being underage. I never saw him again. I was arrested on Hollywood Boulevard as an underage transient and shipped back to Chicago.

I moved back to Chicago with a fresh new meaning to my life, because I was really open. I knew I wanted some kind of relationship. I had moved into my apartment by this time and was out one night when I met a gentleman who was a student at Northwestern. We met on the street because, being underage, I couldn't get into the bars. We stayed together for eight years, and then he moved away to join a commune in San Francisco. I thought, ‘Richard, I love you dearly, but I'm not the commune type.’ We stayed in contact until his death about a year and a half ago, and he was really the love of my life.

I went to the 1968 Democratic National Convention. I saw these busloads of people, along with officers and cops in riot gear, heading towards just where I was. I said, ‘Okay, I'm going to go down there and just kind of nose around, see what's going on.’ It was the YIPPIES at the time. If you're familiar with the ‘68 convention, they were taking over the city, and they were going to put acid in our water supply and everything. It was a bunch of hype. When I saw what was going on there between the police and reporters and all that, and tear gas, I knew something was wrong. I could tell what was right, what was wrong. I actually stayed demonstrating the entire week during the ‘68 convention.

I was in front, and we were marching our way down to the arena where they were holding it. All of a sudden, people kept disappearing in front of me. I saw jeeps with barbed wire fencing on the front, which were used for crowd control. People kept dissipating. The next thing I knew, I was kind of up front—I was a conservative kid from the suburbs of Chicago. Then, all of a sudden, I heard something that sounded like a tin can on the street, and I looked down to see the thing explode. A tear gas canister hit me, and that kind of did it for me. I think it really changed my mood.

The following year was the Stonewall Rebellion. I had a friend who was living in New York at the time, and he called us, saying, ‘You won't believe what's going on in the Village today.’ He was explaining the riots that were taking place in front of Stonewall. It was kind of our front row seat of the riot itself. From that, I started going to the Gay Liberation meetings here in Chicago that were at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University.

Our first action was setting up dances. We picketted until we were allowed to dance with the same sex without being arrested for lewd behavior. There were a couple of restaurants around the mid north area of the city that would discriminate against gay people, so we'd picket them—for discrimination rather than the dancing issue. There was a bar called the Normandy Inn, which was a Mafia-owned establishment, much like the Stonewall, and was actually the most conducive to dancing. So we would go down there and pickett a couple of nights, and then before we knew it, we heard that the vice commander of that district said, ‘We don't care what you have to do, but get those faggots off the street.’ It wasn’t a good sign, but we kept going. We always made sure we had lawyers ready.

At this time, there was a conservative television show by Howard Miller on ABC in Chicago. They asked Chicago Gay Liberation to come down and be audience guests. They had David Ruben, who wrote Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), as a guest. His chapter on homosexuality was just disgusting. This made our brother Murray Eddelman go up the wall. We decided to stand up and zap the event. Afterward, we were in a car leaving the studios, and all of a sudden we were pulled over by the police. They searched the car. Who knows how that all happened? We were on television. My sister called to tell me.

From that we started an organization called the Chicago Gay Alliance, which was a less radical group of folks, but still involved with civil rights. It was great getting to know each other under the Chicago Gay Alliance banner. We opened up the first what we called, at the time, the gay community center. It was a small house that basically served what the community centers nowadays do. The house had a huge attic room, which we used for meetings, a kitchen for potluck dinners, and a bedroom that we used as a lending library. People used it sometimes as a crash pad, but with our help line and phone, we were quite busy with the community setting.

My signature was on the first parade permit in 1971 that was issued by the City of Chicago. I learned then you just ask for everything. I think most of our homophobia is self-inflicted, because it wasn't that difficult to get a permit for a march, but it never had happened before. We learned about traffic and everything else. Everything is a learning experience.

I want to ensure that the history is written correctly because once it's written incorrectly, it's hard to change. So I criticize. I look at books and read a lot of gay literature, nonfiction; if there are dates and things wrong, I try to correct them. A lot of times, younger folks just don't care about history. They don't care about history, they don't know who they are, and that's how we get attacked. We're constantly separated. We can't bind together. That's the way the government is set up, and so I just get pissed off that people don't know their history better than they do. There are so many good books out there now. People just need to stop and learn.”