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Carrie Barnett is a LGBT rights advocate, President of 10.10 Solutions, Inc. in Columbia, Missouri since January 2008, Manager HealthCORE Technology since May 2020 and owner of Owner of Phunkey Incorporated since January 2008.
Barnett earned a MA in Business/Arts Administration from the Wisconsin School of Business, Certificates from Northwestern University and from Stephens College, a BA in Business and BFA in Theatre Arts.[ citation needed ].
Barnett grew up in Dayton, Ohio and as a teenager, reading books helped her when she was coming out of the closet. [1]
With Brett Shingledecker, she was the founder of owner of Chicago's People Like Us Bookstore, the first exclusively gay and lesbian bookstore in the city. [1] [2] Additionally, she held leadership positions on the Gerber/Hart Library board and organized fundraisers for local organizations. [3]
Outside of her work with the bookstore, Barnett acted as a Horizons youth group adviser and served on review panels for the Chicago Department of Public Health. [4] Her previous roles include President of the Gerber/Hart Library and Archives board of directors and co-chair of fundraising events for organizations such as Equality Illinois and Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. [4]
Barnett also judged Lambda Literary Awards, participated in fundraising initiatives, and contributed to the founding of the Chicago Area Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. [4]
The Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame inducted Barnett in 1998. [5]
The Gerber/Hart Library and Archives, founded in 1981, is the largest circulating library of gay and lesbian titles in the Midwestern United States. Located in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood, it houses over 14,000 volumes, 800 periodical titles, and 100 archival collections. The Gerber/Hart Library and Archives were inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 1996.
Pearl M. Hart was a Chicago attorney who defended oppressed minority groups. Hart was the first woman in Chicago to be appointed Public Defender in the Morals Court. She represented children, women, immigrants, lesbians, and gay men, often without fee or for a nominal fee. She attended the John Marshall Law School and was admitted to the Illinois State Bar in 1914.
Henry Gerber was an early homosexual rights activist in the United States. Inspired by the work of Germany's Magnus Hirschfeld and his Scientific-Humanitarian Committee and by the organisation Bund für Menschenrecht by Friedrich Radszuweit and Karl Schulz, Gerber founded the Society for Human Rights (SHR) in 1924, the nation's first known homosexual organization, and Friendship and Freedom, the first known American homosexual publication. SHR was short-lived, as police arrested several of its members shortly after it incorporated. Although embittered by his experiences, Gerber maintained contacts within the fledgling homophile movement of the 1950s and continued to agitate for the rights of homosexuals. Gerber has been repeatedly recognized for his contributions to the LGBT movement.
Laura Marie Ricketts is an American political activist and former attorney who is co-owner of the Chicago Cubs. Ricketts is also a board member of Lambda Legal and the Housing Opportunities for Women organization. Ricketts' ownership stake in the Cubs makes her the first openly gay owner of a major-league sports franchise.
Kelly Cassidy is an American politician from Chicago. She is a Democrat and a member of the Illinois House of Representatives. She was appointed to represent the 14th district, on Chicago's North Side, in April 2011 following incumbent Harry Osterman's election to the Chicago City Council. She took office on May 16, 2011. Most notably Kelly Cassidy was the chief sponsor of House Bill 1438, making Illinois the first state to legalize the Adult-Use of Cannabis through legislature as opposed to a ballot measure.
The U.S. state of Illinois has an active LGBT history, centered on its largest city Chicago, where by the 1920s a gay village had emerged in the Old Town district. Chicago was also the base for the short-lived Society for Human Rights, an early LGBT rights advocacy organization (1924).
Equality Illinois (EI) was founded in 1991 to work towards building a better Illinois by advancing equal treatment and social justice through education, advocacy, and protection of the rights of the LGBT community.
Chicago has long had a gay neighborhood. Beginning in the 1920s there was active homosexual nightlife in Towertown, adjacent to the Water Tower. Increasing rents forced gay-friendly establishments steadily northwards, moving through Old Town and Lincoln Park along Clark Street and on to Boys Town. Boys Town presently serves as the best-known Chicago gayborhood, and the center of its LGBT culture. Gentrification has pushed many gay and lesbian people to reside ever further north into Uptown, Edgewater and Rogers Park.
Carlos T. Mock is a Puerto Rican physician, gay activist, journalist, and writer who has published both works in the medical profession, works of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.
Marie Jayne Kuda (1940–2016) was an American writer, lecturer, publisher, and historian of LGBT culture in Chicago. Her collection contained over 100,000 documents and ephemera and her research extended to LGBT culture from ancient times through the 20th century. She was the founder of Womanpress, published the first annotated bibliography of lesbian literature, Women Loving Women, and organized five Lesbian Writers' Conferences in Chicago.
William B. Kelley was a gay activist and lawyer from Chicago, Illinois. Many laud him as an important figure in gaining rights for gay people in the United States, as he was actively involved in gay activism for 50 years.
Vernita Gray was an African-American lesbian and women's liberation activist from the beginning of those movements in Chicago. She began her writing career publishing in the newsletter Lavender Woman. After owning and operating her own restaurant for almost a decade, Gray became the LGBT liaison for the Cook County State's Attorney's office. In 2013, she and her partner became the first same-sex partners to wed in Illinois.
Renee C. Hanover was an American lawyer and civil rights advocate who practiced in Chicago. As a lawyer, she defended groups and individuals involved in civil rights cases dealing with gender, LGBT issues and race. She was part of the Women's Law Center and fought for intersectional equality. Hanover was one of the first openly gay lawyers to practice in the United States.
Adrienne J. Smith (1934–1992) was an American psychologist. She came out as a lesbian in 1973 and became one of the first openly out lesbian psychologists in the American Psychological Association (APA). She worked for reforms in the APA and spoke on LGBT rights across the country.
Ellen Kitch Childs was an American clinical psychologist and a lesbian activist known for her participation in the women's liberation movement in North America and for advocating for minority women, prostitutes, gays and lesbians. She was a founding member of the University of Chicago's Gay Liberation and the first African American woman to earn her doctorate degree in Human Development at the University of Chicago.
Margaret Ann "Peg" Grey was an American physical education teacher and sports organizer based in Chicago. She was the first female co-chair of the Federation of Gay Games. She was inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame in 1992.
Arlene A. Halko was an American medical physicist and gay rights advocate, based in Chicago. She was inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame in 1996.
Tracy Baim is a Chicago-based LGBT journalist, editor, author, and filmmaker. She is also the publisher of the Chicago Reader newspaper.
Joanne E. Trapani was an American activist and politician. She was the first open lesbian elected official in Illinois when she won a seat on the village board of Oak Park in 1997, and she was inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame in 1993.
Brett Shingledecker, a native of Lima, Ohio, was one of the two founders of People Like Us, Chicago’s first gay and lesbian bookstores. He was inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame in 2011.