A dress formerly owned by a local drag queen, testosterone gel and a personal collection of protest buttons from the late ’80s and early ’90s were displayed on a table at the Center on Addison Friday night.
The objects appear vaguely related and their placement almost random. But the display is a deliberate creation for an art project titled “Outside of the Box: Finding our True Selves,” one of seven art projects made by the LGBTQ+ Intergenerational Dialogue Project’s members for its third annual art show.
The class is the product of a partnership between the Center on Halsted’s senior services center, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois Chicago. It aims to connect young queer people to their elders to preserve their shared history. The group puts on art shows at the end of the spring semester, and the fall semester cohort focuses specifically on storytelling.
“Their story may be different than ours,” said Roy Kaufman, one of the members on the project. But “it represents how we got here.”
One of Kaufman’s group members, Terri Worman, said it helped her see her own lifelong draw toward androgyny in a new light because of how younger generations have viewed gender. She said it was hopeful to have seen so much change over her lifetime and what that might mean decades down the line for future generations.
“This fluidity they grew up with, it wasn’t there for my generation,” said Worman, 69, of Rogers Park. “The generations keep adding to it. It makes me cry. It’s so nice, and yet in the atmosphere we’re in, it could make it harder for them. But we [elders] all want to be part of their movement.”
This year’s art show is titled “Resisting Erasure.” It comes as the federal government rolls back protections on trans rights — including legislative actions targeting access to health care, and access to bathrooms and locker rooms; efforts to remove the ability to get passports aligning with gender identity; and limiting opportunities to play sports or be housed in proper prison facilities, among others.
It also comes amid more than 570 anti-LGBTQ+ bills in various stages and concerns the U.S. Supreme Court could revisit marriage equality given legal challenges in six states.
Bailey Taylor’s group expanded mid-semester after one of the elders in the group died and another had to leave for medical reasons. Combining the groups gave them a chance to combat another issue — funding for the LGBTQ+ elder housing where many of the group members live.
The Center on Halsted has lost grants as part of sweeping public cuts, and the federal grant that was supposed to fund this fall’s iteration of the class no longer exists. Taylor’s group ended up making 150 zines and 100 hand-made shirts to try to raise funds using a mix of archival images and layouts that “felt Gen Z.”
But ultimately her group leaned into a more outward political stance with their project, largely around solidarity and protecting trans women. Taylor said she had to speak on issues politically, because her existence as a trans woman has been deemed political.
“We wanted to make the most of this moment,” Taylor said. “We have to ask who gets to choose to be political. And when someone doesn’t have the choice, we have the obligation to listen.”
Artist Bailey Taylor said she felt she had to speak on issues politically, because her existence as a trans woman has been deemed political. “We have to ask who gets to choose to be political. And when someone doesn’t have the choice, we have the obligation to listen.”
Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Sun-Times
Despite fears for the future, the class helped ground the group members.
Taylor moved to Chicago from Seattle eight months ago to continue her education, leaving the community she had grown up in and engaged with. She said the class made her feel at home again.
Toi Williams, a retiree from the finance sector who was part of a different group, felt the same way.
She moved to the city to be near the last of her family: her brother, who died two years ago. Now she said she’s found her place in the class, connecting with other elders as well as her younger counterparts.
“These are my people,” Williams, 82, said. “We all belong somewhere.”
Williams had participated in sit-ins against racial segregation in Nashville 66 years ago when she was in college. She said those fighting for their rights today should take inspiration from the determination of previous generations — and the fight for one’s rights is never over, no matter how much progress is made.
“Rev. Jesse Jackson had a saying when I was in the sit-ins, and it’s the essence of who I am,” Williams said. “Keep hope alive.”
