Public transportation users in Chicago, Illinois can look forward to riding the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) Pride Train throughout the month of June. For the entire month, Windy City residents and visitors to this “Second City” can commute around town in a four-car rainbow covered CTA train that celebrates inclusive LGBTQ healthcare policies around the city.
Howard Brown Health, the premier LGBTQ healthcare organization in all the Midwest, has decorated the interiors of the train cars with brightly colorful visual materials about Howard Brown’s services and clientel. The visuals highlight Howard Brown’s diverse clientele, indicating that Howard Brown has never denied anyone healthcare and never will, will not judge anyone’s sexuality, and will not define anyone by their HIV status.
Howard Brown Health, founded in 1974, is now one of the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) organizations. The agency serves more than 27,000 adults and youths each year in myriad health and social service delivery systems. Howard Brown focuses focused on seven divisions: primary medical care, behavioral health, research, HIV and STI prevention, youth services, elder services, and community initiatives. Howard Brown serves men, women, trans and gender non-conforming folks, infants, youth, and children, at sites all around the city, including a main health and research center in the Uptown neighborhood, Howard Brown Health Sheridan, and other clinics in Lakeview, Rogers Park, Englewood, and Hyde Park, as well as the Broadway Youth Center.
This writer has a special soft spot in my heart for the Howard Brown Health Center. When I lived in Chicago, 1977–80, I volunteered one or two nights a week at the front desk of the clinic, doing intake of clients. That was when my volunteering and activism began. Howard Brown was an important, effective organization then—I’m sure they’ve gotten only better!
So, if you’re visiting Chicago this month, ALL ABOARD THE PRIDE TRAIN!!
For more information about Howard Brown Health and the great work they do every day, check in to https://howardbrown.org.
—Reporting by Hank Trout
Hank Trout, Editor at Large, edited Drummer, Malebox, and Folsom magazines in the early 1980s. A long-term survivor of HIV/AIDS (diagnosed in 1989), he is a forty-year resident of San Francisco, where he lives with his fiancé Rick. Follow him on Twitter @HankTroutWriter.