The Windy City Times, the oldest LGBTQ publication in Illinois, is being honored by GLAAD with the Barbara Gittings Award for Excellence in LGBTQ Media.
The award is named for Barbara Gittings, a co-founder of The Ladder, one of the first lesbian publications in the U.S. The award is being given to the WCT to honor the newspaper’s legacy and the end of an era.
“For over 35 years, Tracy Baim and the team at Windy City Times have been a trailblazing force in LGBTQ media, helping to reach generations of LGBTQ people with inspiring, uplifting, and enlightening stories from our community,” said GLAAD President & CEO Sarah Kate Ellis. “Born in the middle of the AIDS epidemic, Windy City Times has a profound legacy of centering LGBTQ people and issues at a time when acceptance for our community was minimal. Today, Windy City Times remains a powerful example of the critical significance and impact of LGBTQ media, and is truly deserving of this year’s Barbara Gittings Award for Excellence in LGBTQ Media.”
The newspaper is now completely online, having printed its final paper issue in September 2020. It printed its first issue in 1985.
“Well, this is an honor for Windy City Times, and I feel lucky that I’m the one being a spokesperson for it, but I’m absolutely not the only person,” said Tracy Baim, cofounder of the WCT and co-publisher of the Chicago Reader. “I want to acknowledge that there’s been hundreds of people from the co-founders, Jeff, Bob and Drew and I, to people through today, like hundreds of people who’ve made this happen.”
The newspaper will receive the award at the 32nd Annual GLAAD Media Awards,