Pride Reception Honors Youth

On June 5, Mayor Richard M. Daley welcomed a happy and well-fed crowd to the annual Pride Month reception of the City of Chicago Commission on Human Relations’ Advisory Council on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Issues. LGBT community members and allies gathered in G.A.R. Hall at the Chicago Cultural Center to mingle and celebrate.

Daley briefly spoke about the importance of the LGBT community to Chicago and remarked on the importance of continuing progress into the future.

William Greaves of the Chicago Commission on Human Relations also spoke about the future of the LGBT community in Chicago, remarking on the ribbon cutting ceremony that occurred earlier that day for the new Center on Halsted. Greaves said the center provides a safe space for the LGBT community and he hopes to see that safe space expand: ‘Our goal is to make all of Chicago, beginning with our schools, a safe space, a safe space for our communities. Helping to show the way to this brave new world is seventh grader Bryan Taico.’

Taico, a student at Helen C. Peirce School of International Studies, is this year’s winner of the 15th annual City of Chicago Commission on Human Relations Citywide Essay Contest on ‘Ideas for Improving Human Relations.’ His essay focused on sexual orientation discrimination. (See below.)

Taico won a laptop computer for his essay, and at the reception Greaves presented him with a plaque and computer bag. Photos by Kat Fitzgerald and Charlsie Dewey