In 1996, the Chicago Area Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce was established. By the early 2000s, it would have a membership of more than 600 businesses.

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In 1997, the Chicago City Council extended domestic partnership benefits to municipal employees.

In 1998, Boystown received the distinction of being America's first officially recognized gay village. As part of a city-sponsored $3.2 million restoration project, the North Halsted Street strip was decorated with lighted rainbow pylons. The bronze pylons, more than 10 feet high with rainbow circles, were constructed by the city as an official designation of Chicago's most prominent glbtq neighborhood.

In 2005, the Illinois legislature passed legislation outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in employment, housing, credit, and public accommodations, in effect extending the protections pioneered in Chicago and Cook County to the entire state.

In July 2006, Chicago's queer community hosted the Gay Games VI Sports and Cultural Festival.

In March 2007, Horizons Community Service's long-awaited Center on Halsted, after some five years of planning, is scheduled to open. Intended to be a focal point for Chicago's glbtq community, the Center aims to meet the diverse social, recreational, cultural, and social service needs of a population that has too often been neglected.

One of America's most storied cities, Chicago is one of the world's leading commerical and industrial centers. It boasts numerous cultural, educational, and social opportunities, from renowned institutions such as the Art Institute, the Chicago Symphony, and the Joffrey Ballet to lively bars and restaurants catering to people of all sexual orientations. A vital part of the city is its diverse and energetic glbtq community. The annual gay pride celebrations now attract hundreds of thousands of participants, as does the annual Northalsted Market Days celebration, which has become the largest two-day festival in the state.

The U.S. gay rights movement has made significant progress toward achieving equality for glbtq Americans, and in the process has become more inclusive and diverse, but much remains to be done.

The gay and lesbian press is of prime importance in sustaining a frequently embattled minority and has been crucial in the development of a national mass movement for gay rights.

"Leather" is a blanket term for a large array of sexual preferences, identities, relationship structures, and social organizations loosely tied together by the thread of what is conventionally understood as sadomasochistic sex.

McCarthyism, which attempted in the late 1940s and early 1950s to expunge Communists and fellow travelers from American public life, made homosexuals the chief scapegoats of the Cold War.

Both parades and marches have served to render the glbtq community visible; whereas marches typically attempt to effect political change, parades and pride events affirm identity and community.

Saugatuck, Michigan is a popular resort destination for glbtq vacationers, especially from Chicago and Detroit

It is significant for glbtq history that a number of the women volunteers in the settlement house movement--which flourished at the turn of the twentieth century--formed close, lasting relationships with one another while living and working together.

Sodomy laws, which provided the legal basis for police harassment of sexual minorities, were conclusively overturned by the United States Supreme Court in 2003, after more than half a century of efforts at reform.

Using bold images and confrontational tactics, ACT UP worked to promote awareness of AIDS and challenge the complacency of politicians and government officials in the early years of the epidemic.

American reformer, social worker, peace activist, and Nobel Laureate Jane Addams is remembered as the founder of Hull House in Chicago, but her involvement in same-sex relationships has consistently been hidden or minimized by biographers.

A distinguished physician and founder of the National Gay Task Force, Dr. Howard Brown helped change the image of gay men and lesbians in the United States.

A quadrennial sporting and cultural event designed for the glbtq community, the Gay Games has become a lucrative attraction for host cities.

The Legacy Walk in Chicago is an outdoor history museum that reclaims and celebrates glbtq contributions to world history and culture.

One of the earliest American gay movement organizations, the Mattachine Society was dedicated to the cultural and political liberation of homosexuals; but in the face of McCarthyism, it adopted conservative policies of accommodationism.

The confrontations between police and demonstrators at the Stonewall Inn in New York City the weekend of June 27-29, 1969 mark the beginning of the modern glbtq movement for equal rights.

The Wolfenden Report, a 1957 British government study, recommended that homosexual behavior between consenting adults in private no longer be criminalized in England.