“The same way years ago, y’all wanted to say that you would ‘take back Boystown from South Side trash?’” Coulee asked. Shea Couleé of RuPaul’s Drag Race fame referenced “Take Back Boystown,” a racist online campaign dating back to 2011 that called for greater policing to rid the neighborhood of homeless queer youth, in a speech at the event. At last June’s Drag March for Change, members of the Black LGBTQ+ community called out racism in queer spaces. They wrote that business leaders in Northhalsted “have cultivated a community on their historic street that is mostly made up of cis, white, and male patrons and employees,” whether consciously or unconsciously.Ĭamp is by no means the only one pushing back against the neighborhood’s exclusionary legacy.
