Where are the girls? A look at early lesbian nightlife in Chicago

Curious City

WBEZ Chicago

Society & Culture, Education, Public, Chicago, Arts, City, Radio, Curious, Investigation

4.8 • 642 Ratings

🗓️ 25 June 2025

⏱️ 8 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It’s not hard to find the LGBTQ+ hangouts in Chicago these days, but at one point it was. There’s a history of lesbian nightlife that goes back more than 100 years.

Transcript

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0:31.6	It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region.
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0:38.3	Explore.
0:39.3	From WBEZ.
0:41.3	What's up Chicago?
0:43.3	I'm Erin Allen and this is Curious City.
0:45.3	Happy Pride Month, with all the events happening this month and really any time of the year in Chicago, it's not hard to find the LGBTQ plus hangouts. But at one point,
0:57.1	it was hard. And it's challenging to find the history of it as well. Mara Laser picks up this
1:03.2	week's story.
1:03.7	That's where I'll be. Where the girls are, that's where I'll be.
1:11.5	Since this gossip song came out in 2001, I've been asking myself, where are they?
1:17.8	And so has a curious city listener who asked,
1:20.7	where are all the queer women hanging out these days?
	...

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