Chicago City Council recognized LGBTQ+ leaders from across the city on June 18, honoring community contributions while also drawing connections to the fight for Black liberation ahead of Juneteenth.
The meeting opened with an invocation from Rev. Jamie Frazier, an openly gay pastor at Lighthouse Church of Chicago, and continued with a resolution presented by Mayor Brandon Johnson that celebrated the LGBTQ+ community’s “vital contributions… to the lifeblood of the City of Chicago.”
Councilmembers took turns highlighting LGBTQ+ leaders, activists and organizations. Many alderpeople reflected on the shared roots of Pride and Juneteenth, held June 19 to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved people in the U.S., as movements for freedom and resistance.
Among the honorees was PRIDEChicago, which organizes the annual Chicago Pride Parade, and its historic set of community leaders featured in this year’s parade.
“For the first time in parade history, a local community group will lead the parade as the inaugural Out Front leader,” said Ald. Bennett Lawson (44th Ward), introducing TaskForce Prevention and Community Services, a West Side LGBTQ+ youth wellness organization.
“It’s being honored for its decades of unwavering service, providing critical resources, advocacy and support to LGBTQ+ youth, particularly those in underserved communities,” Lawson said.
Lawson, who is one of nine openly LGBTQ+ alderpeople in Chicago, also recognized the 2025 community grand marshals, Dr. Maya Green and Dr. Catherine Creticos, who were selected through a public nomination process.
Creticos’s participation marks the first time an ally has been a grand marshal in the Chicago Pride Parade. Creticos has dedicated more than 30 years to serving the LGBTQ+ community as an infectious disease specialist. As the medical director of clinical research at Howard Brown’s Center for Education, Research and Advocacy, Creticos has led critical HIV therapy trials and vaccine studies advancing LGBTQ+ health care.
Green is chief medical and health equity officer at Onyx Medical Wellness, a new health care organization serving LGBTQ+ people on the South Side. Several alderpeople praised Green’s crucial role in pandemic-era public health work, particularly on the South Side.
“This amazing Black woman… saved us during COVID,” said Ald. Jeanette Taylor (20th Ward). “She not only talked about vaccinations, she talked about how to keep ourselves safe, wearing our masks and how important it was to make sure that we’re paying attention to the city.”
Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd Ward) said Green would engage with her constituents, even “when nobody wanted to talk to our residents, especially the seniors.”
Lawson also recognized the team behind PRIDEChicago—Tim Frye, Steve Long, Ron Thomas, Daniel Ortiz and Terra Campbell—for their volunteer role in making the annual celebration happen. Frye, longtime coordinator of the parade, was recently inducted into the U.S. Association of Prides Hall of Fame.
“The parade theme this year is ‘United in Pride,’ and I think we should all take that with us… and draw on the strengths of every aspect of our community when it comes together in that great moment at the end of June,” Lawson said.
City Council also acknowledged longtime LGBTQ+ activist Robert Castillo for his enduring contributions to LGBTQ+ liberation in Chicago. Castillo, a queer Latino organizer, was inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame at age 33 after more than a decade of work with groups like ACT UP, Queer Nation Chicago and the Association of Latin Men for Action.
“Robert’s vision was, is and always will be one of true inclusion and equity,” said Ald. Anthony Quezada (35th Ward). “‘Everyone in, no one out—solidaridad entre todos los pueblos.’ That’s the vision of Robert Castillo.”
Councilmembers repeatedly emphasized that the fight for LGBTQ+ rights cannot be separated from broader struggles for racial and gender justice. This point was underscored when at least one person appeared to be removed from City Council chambers after disrupting remarks by Ald. Maria Hadden, Chicago’s first Black LGBTQ+ alderperson, who drew direct connections between Pride Month and Juneteenth.
“I’m Black every day, and I’m gay every day, and I’m a woman every day—even on council days,” Hadden said. “We’re Americans, we’re Chicagoans, [and] we have complex identities—and we get to celebrate all of that together.”
Ald. Leni Manaa-Hoppenworth (48th Ward) also embraced that spirit of intersectionality, noting that she wore a cowgirl hat “for Pride and also in solidarity and celebration of Juneteenth, marking the end of slavery in the U.S., and to honor Black cowboy freedom fighters.”
Other alders spoke about the sense of urgency they feel in the face of rising anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric.
Ald. Timmy Knudsen (43rd Ward), who warned that hostile symbols and language are increasingly targeting young people, whether that be online or in public spaces like City Council chambers, where Hadden’s remarks were interrupted.
“There’s not a single queer kid who’s not being infiltrated by hateful symbols and language on social media, in schools, when they come to visit the City Council, which should be a safe space for everyone,” Knudsen said. “And that is absolutely not acceptable.”
Lawson, who introduced the resolution, pointed to the Legacy Project’s Legacy Wall installation in City Hall through June 27 as another effort to honor LGBtQ+ history and remind residents: “We will not be erased.”