Chicago's gay underground ran deeper than the mob—and twice as organized.
Quearborn & Perversion: An Early History of Lesbian & Gay Chicago (2009, 109 min) is a documentary on LGBTQ life in Chicago from 1934 to 1974. Moving from the speakeasys and Henry Gerber’s founding of the Society for Human Rights in the 1930s, to the underground social structure of the 1940s and 1950s, to the dawn of consciousness-raising entities such as the Daughters of Bilitis and Mattachine Midwest in the 1960’s, and concluding with the emergence of the gay liberation movement with the first Pride March and opening of the first community center in the early 1970s.
Acting
Studs Terkel's narration carries decades of buried voices.
Production
Rare archival footage from police raids and basement bars.
Director
Ron Pajak
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The title comes from a 1940s police term for gay male sex workers: 'queer-born and perversion.' The filmmakers reclaimed it.
Chuck Renslow, interviewed here, founded the Gold Coast leather bar and ran the first gay-oriented publishing company in the US—his archives formed the backbone of Chicago's queer historical record.
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