Latest news with #Baim
Chicago Tribune
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
She wanted more spaces in Chicago for queer women to build deep connections with each other — so she made her own social club.
When Aderinsola Akeju saw an ad on social media for an all-female slumber party, the former boarding school student was excited for the opportunity to fulfill a wistful dream. But instead of snacks and late-night conversations, the party felt more like a rave she could find anywhere, she said. Disappointed, the 22-year-old decided to throw her own slumber party with friends complete with drinks, games and karaoke. 'I had never felt so euphoric and happy about hosting something,' Akeju said. That night inspired a broader vision, but it was not until she received $10,000 a grant from the Human Rights Campaign's 'Queer to Stay' program last December that she went all in with her idea. Now, Akeju, a retail store director, regularly organizes intimate gatherings for queer women, especially queer women of color, through her social club Pink Sappho. Pink Sappho is part of a resurgence in Chicago of spaces dedicated for queer women. Tracy Baim, a journalist who has covered the LGBTQ+ community in Chicago for more than 40 years, said that there are more spaces for queer women today than there were at any point in her career. 'Coming out of COVID, it feels like there was just an explosion of both full-time bars and pop-up parties and other types of social events out there, specifically targeting lesbians in nonbinary and gender non-conforming folks,' Baim said. Baim noted multiple factors driving this increase, including a more openly queer population in the U.S., a longing for more in-person socializing after COVID and a new wave of anti-LGBTQ sentiment. 'I think coming out of (the pandemic), as people want community, and we have more forces fighting against us again, like we did in the '80s, there's this resurgence of anti-lesbian, anti-queer behavior out there. So sometimes being with like minded folks can be a safe haven,' Baim said. Pop-up parties and social clubs for queer women in particular seem to be growing in popularity in recent years, said Kristen Kaza, co-founder of the pop-up group Slo 'Mo. 'Queer pop-up parties are so many different things, but it is taking over a space and reclaiming it, making it ours from who we are inviting to the space to the programming and who we're featuring,' Kaza said, emphasizing that this pop-up model has been particularly popular with queer women in the absence of brick-and-mortar spaces dedicated to that demographic. Kaza said that such pop-up groups have been around for a long time. One of the most popular pop-up party groups in Chicago, Executive Sweet, ran for decades and started as a way to create welcoming spaces for queer women of color who found themselves discriminated against in white-owned lesbian bars. What is different now, Kaza noted, is that following the pandemic more young people are taking it upon themselves to make the pop-up parties and social clubs — and they're getting creative with the spaces they're making. Pink Sappho is an example of just that. Akeju said that for her, she felt that events for queer women were too centered on nightlife and clubbing. Rather, she wanted a social group that was focused on building genuine relationships and education. 'A lot of stuff happens at night, but even straight people want to connect with people without having to go to a club,' Akeju said. 'We don't need another club, that's cool to have. We can have a banging party, but we need education.' Kelsie Bowers, an ambassador for Pink Sappho, also emphasized that finding social clubs made for Black queer women can be particularly difficult. In her experience, many social spaces are not necessarily created with Black queer women in mind, and she also said they tend to be focused more on nightlife. Once President Donald Trump took office for his second term, Bowers felt an increased urgency to be around more people like her and build the kinds of spaces she'd felt were missing from her life. 'Around the time that Trump got in office, I just realized the immediate threat that that posed, not only to my community as a lesbian woman, but also as a Black woman,' Bowers said. 'I reached out to (Akeju) and I was like, 'Hey, I want to do whatever I can do right now for my community, because I can't just sit and watch all of this go down.'' No two Pink Sappho events are exactly alike, but there are three pillars that are always touched upon in some way at every event: authentic connection, wellness and sex education. Some things you may find at a typical Pink Sappho event include complimentary drinks — usually champagne — upon entry, venues with elegant architecture, an 8-foot long charcuterie board and games designed to spark friendship or ignite a new romance. It may seem simple, but it is that type of community building that Bowers sees as crucial to navigating the next four years. 'We want to build community. We want to make sure that we have community for our people, that they know that this is a space for them, that they can feel safe and that they can feel relaxed and we want a place for us to be able to connect,' Bowers said. 'It's really affirming to see us come together.' It's the kind of space Tyara Whitted was looking for. The 23-year-old attended her first Pink Sappho — a Juneteenth happy hour — event Wednesday. She would go out to queer-friendly neighborhoods such as Boystown, but found herself longing for more spaces with people that share her experiences. 'I just kind of realized that the gay spaces that I want to occupy are the ones that also identify with me, not just like queer-wise, but also racial-wise,' Whitted said, who attended Pink Sappho's Juneteenth Happy Hour Wednesday evening. It was just the kind of event she was looking for. 'We do occupy the nightlife, and it'd be nice to mix it up where we can occupy the brunch life, the afternoon life,' Whitted said. 'I'm getting older. I rely on CTA. Sometimes I don't want to be out that late trying to find that connection and sometimes the connection I want to find isn't at a club — it's at a fun, low-key event.'
Chicago Tribune
14-05-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Laura Washington: Journalism jobs may be in decline but local news still has a bright future
Everywhere I go, I hear, 'What is happening to the media? What will become of it?' I am asking too. Journalists are filled with fear and loathing over the threats facing the Fourth Estate. Money has corrupted national media icons and poisoned the waters for news consumers. Some, including the once-vaunted Washington Post, have bowed down to the illicit demands of President Donald Trump. '60 Minutes,' the once-hallowed CBS newsmagazine, appears to be kowtowing to Trump, who has sued the network for $10 billion, accusing it of 'unlawful and illegal behavior.' Too many buy into Trump's claim that we are the arbiters of 'fake news.' Trump signed an executive order commanding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to 'cease federal funding for NPR and PBS.' On Truth Social, he labeled those public networks 'RADICAL LEFT 'MONSTERS' THAT SO BADLY HURT OUR COUNTRY!' Legacy media operations are enduring debilitating buyouts, layoffs and shutdowns. The nation has lost more than one-third of its newspapers since 2005, with 130 newspapers closing in the most recent 12-month period, according to a 2024 study by Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern University. The current political climate has made journalists the boogeymen for all that is wrong with our nation. When Democracy is at its greatest threat, the media is at its weakest. So, Chicago Women Take Action, a multigenerational activist group, convened a discussion with prominent media makers and communicators. Last week's virtual program, 'Is the Press Still Free?' posed questions about the role of media in our democracy, the state of journalism, and swirling controversies about media ownership and perils are nothing new, but there is hope for new solutions, Sylvia Ewing, vice president of journalism and media engagement at the Public Narrative, told Laurie Glenn, the moderator and president and CEO of Thinkinc. 'I'm here to say that we are at the best of times and the worst of times. … When we look at legacy media, things were not perfect. We always had bias, we always had point of view. We always had fewer Black women or people of color or women leading newsrooms, leading editorial shops. And what we see now, with the advent of the implementation of Project 2025, is frightening, but not insurmountable.' Now, our imperfect media is suffering from massive losses in advertising revenue and intense competition from the digital explosion and AI. Under Trump's corrosive attacks, some are surrendering, Tracy Baim said. Baim is the founder of the Windy City Times, which reports on the LGBTQ community, and a former publisher of the Chicago Reader. 'I think the problem we've had with some of these national organs is they've never really had to face an administration trying to control them in the way that this one is. And we see how fast they cave because of their business interests. They want mergers. They want, you know, favorability,' Baim said. She now serves as executive director of Press Forward Chicago, a pooled philanthropic fund housed at the Chicago Community Trust. The plan is to pour millions of dollars into revitalizing local, community-based, independent media organizations in the Chicago area. 'For me, all politics is local,' Baim said. 'All news is local. Everything bubbles up from there.' The water crisis in Flint, Michigan 'was a local story that bubbled up nationally. And then you look to how the trends are across the country with clean water. Well, that's what I believe in: strong local media.' Fresh out of journalism school, I yearned to hone my craft at one of Chicago's big dailies. Instead, I spent much of my career at The Chicago Reporter, then one of only a handful of nonprofit news outlets in Chicago. Today, there are dozens. These small but mightily independent and award-winning news shops have popped up like tulips in spring. They represent journalism's bright future. They include the Invisible Institute, which advocates for police and criminal justice reform, and won a Pulitzer Prize last year. Borderless reports on thorny immigration issues. Chalkbeat is the go-to education watchdog. Block Club Chicago covers city neighborhoods on a micro level. The Investigative Project on Race and Equity deploys data to expose racist and economically unjust policies and practices. Unlike the bad old days, many actually join forces to collaborate. No city in the nation boasts as rich a media ecosystem as Chicago. Therein lies the hope. Journalists and media advocates like Ewing say they will 'expand our horizons of what it means to be in journalism and media.' 'How do we … curate and aggregate the existing voices that are reaching lots of people, and then also make sure that others are growing?' Baim asked. 'To me, I'm focused on the local but there are some national voices that are, are, kind of making it through the noise.' What is happening to the media? Local and independent outlets are well positioned to drown out the noise of capitulation and amplify local, independent voices. Bring them on.
