Alice Domurat Dreger

 
 

Last February (2007), my good friend, the sex researcher Paul Vasey, and I went at Paul’s suggestion to visit the Chicago home of Henry Gerber, an early queers rights activist who has been largely (and wrongly) forgotten by contemporary queer rights activists. (I didn’t know about Gerber until Paul told me about him.)


In 1924, Henry Gerber founded the Society for Human Rights, the first gay rights group in the United States. You can read more about him at the site of the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame.


Here we are outside Gerber’s former home:












It was such a cold day! We had to dig the plaque out from under the snow. And you’d think that it wouldn’t have done much for us -- after all, the place is now just someone else’s house (not open to the public), with just a little plaque on the sidewalk. But our pilgrimage did what pilgrimages do -- gave us time to think and talk about, reflect on, and appreciate what Gerber did. What a hero. He sure makes our work days look easy.

 

Our visit to the Chicago home of Henry Gerber, early queer rights activist