ChiQ: Honoring the Past, Planted in the Present
In many ways, we’ve made a lot of progress since the nineties, when Nancy Lanoue founded the Lesbian Community Cancer Project (LCCP). However, with the current threats to healthcare, to reproductive health services and healthcare coverage for low-income women and their children, it can feel like we’ve taken steps back a couple of decades. Access to safe and affirming healthcare for all women, especially the most marginalized, is something we cannot afford to lose.
This year, ChiQ (the annual fundraiser for women’s health services, formerly known as Garden of Eve) will return to South Shore Cultural Center, the site of many legendary LCCP parties (such as the Coming Out Against Cancer ball) in the 1990’s and 2000’s. Once a mecca for lesbians from all over Chicago and beyond, this year’s benefit will remember that past while also being firmly planted in the present. We’re honored to have as our guests, women from the queer community whose lives have been impacted by cancer. And Jeezy’s Juke Joint will give us some of the hottest entertainment that Chicago has to offer.
Women’s Health Services (formerly LCCP) of Howard Brown has been working hard this year: our alternative insemination program, which has birthed many a queer “gaybies” is growing; we’re honored that trans men feel supported in achieving pregnancy with us, just as lesbians have for over almost ten years. We’re proud that here at Howard Brown, people living with HIV have reproductive freedom in creating families. Through a community needs assessment, we spent the last 5 months asking the women and TGNC residents of Chicago what the state of their healthcare is today and what it would look like in a dream world. With your support, we can get closer to that dream. Let’s make sure Howard Brown will always be a place where all genders and sexual orientations are given equal access to safe and affirming healthcare, regardless of ability to pay.