How 12 Queer Americans Found Safety And Acceptance In Chicago: ‘There Is Hope’

CHICAGO — For years, queer people have moved to Chicago in search of greater safety.

While far from a perfect haven for queer people, Chicago has historically LGBTQ+-friendly enclaves like Northalsted and Andersonville, organizations that work to provide queer people with resources such as gender-affirming care, laws that protect people from discrimination based on gender and sexuality — and Pride Month in June sees massive celebrations across the city.

Those safety nets have become increasingly attractive as trans people across the United States have faced a surge in discriminatory legislation and anti-trans violence in recent years.

Photographer Kathleen Hinkel created this portrait series to highlight trans people who have moved to Chicago and the surrounding area, asking what brought them here — and how living in the Chicago area has changed their lives.

Shai Mason, of Andersonville, said she’d grown up in an accepting environment in Los Angeles — but a move to South Dakota left her feeling unsafe and unsure of herself. She found herself again after coming to Chicago.

“There were times I thought no one is coming to accept me,” Mason said. “And now I’m here.”

Benji McCormack faced struggles growing up as a queer youth in Tennessee and was aware from a young age of the violence and discrimination he could face.

After moving to Chicago, McCormack found safety — and the love of his life.

“I’m the person I want to be,” McCormack said.

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‘Here, No One’s Staring At Me’

“In Florida, I’d have a lot less authenticity. I wouldn’t have the freedom to express myself authentically,” said Vivien Little, 26, who arrived in Chicago in February.

Little’s mother kicked her out of their house when Little dated a trans man, she said. Little, just 19, and a friend moved to downstate Illinois, spending years in Peru and Earlville before moving to Chicago. Little now lives in Rogers Park.

Little said Chicago is the first place she’s lived where she feels like she can be herself and walk around. Living downstate didn’t feel as safe.

“I didn’t go anywhere. I just stayed inside my home,” Little said. “Now, I don’t feel like everyone’s looking at me in a weird way like in Florida and downstate.

“Here, no one’s staring at me.”

Little was photographed at home in Rogers Park on June 10, 2026.

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‘How I Can Live The Life I Want To Live’

“If life was a Rubik’s Cube and you’re just trying to solve it and figure it out and get things in place, I think I’ve solved most of that Rubik’s Cube [when] it comes to figuring out where I fit, how I’m comfortable, where I’m safe, how I can live the life I want to live,” said Benji McCormack, 37.

McCormack moved to Chicago in June 2021 from Clarksville, Tennessee, about 35 miles from Nashville.

“During the pandemic, I started seeing the writing on the wall regarding the decline of LGBTQ+ rights/protections and the rise of Trump’s brand of conservatism in Tennessee,” McCormack said. “I made a plan to quit my job and use the three months’ worth of vacation days I had saved up to cover the move to Chicago and give me a couple months of runway to find a job.”

McCormack found a job in Chicago — and then their life partner. McCormack and their husband have been married for a year and a half.

The journey to where McCormack is today has included many struggles and disappointments.

In 1999, a soldier beat Barry Winchell, another soldier, to death because Winchell was dating a trans woman. Winchell had been sleeping in the barracks at Fort Campbell — not far from McCormack’s home of Clarksville.

“I was 10 years old, and I always had this visceral memory of what people in that area were like and what they could be like,” McCormack said.

The attack was preceded and fueled by soldiers harassing Winchell, which the soldiers’ superiors did little to nothing to address under the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

McCormack was discharged from the military just before that policy was repealed in 2011.

“I wouldn’t be as compassionate or understanding as I am today if I hadn’t been put through some of those things,” McCormack said. “I don’t think anybody deserves to go through that, but I do think I came out a better person. I’m the person I want to be.”

McCormack was photographed outside of their job as assistant technical director at the Lyric Opera House on June 9, 2026.

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‘There Is Hope’

“Going from San Diego to Chicago, I felt like I could breathe,” said Shai Mason, 33. “I hope this reaches someone who doesn’t feel like they can be themselves to show there’s light at the end of the dark tunnel.”

Mason was raised in an accepting environment in Los Angeles, growing up with a mother who is queer. But after joining the Air Force, Mason moved to South Dakota.

“I can’t imagine growing up in a place like that,” Mason said.

The experience gave Mason perspective and understanding on what it’s like to be raised or live somewhere less accepting.

“It really opened my eyes to how they must feel. I saw the concern for safety going to a place like rural South Dakota,” Mason said. “I didn’t have the insight to understand why someone would hide parts of themself. I didn’t feel safe.

“Being a Black queer woman serving an organization that’s ruled by majority white — by the end, I didn’t recognize myself.”

Mason came to Chicago on the first day of Pride Month in 2024, landing in Andersonville, which she describes as a “lesbian Mecca.”

“I could feel myself coming back to myself. I didn’t realize how much I was carrying. It feels so distant,” Mason said. “There is hope. Being raised in Los Angeles, going to rural South Dakota, come to Chicago… there is hope.

“There were times I thought no one is coming to accept me, and now I’m here.”

Mason was photographed in front of the Olly Costello mural in Andersonville on June 10, 2026.

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‘Harrowing Experiences That Happened To Me And Made Me Who I Am’

“When I told my parents I was coming out as trans, they were like, ‘We’re never going to talk to you again’ — and they totally still mean that years later,” said Daniel Reed, 24, who was born and raised outside of Louisville, Kentucky.

Reed made his way to Chicago at the age of 18 with a scholarship to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Reed saw that longtime members of the LGBTQ+ community in Chicago didn’t realize what people who come from less accepting places have been through, he said.

“In Kentucky, in order to be queer, you need to be really strong,” Reed said. “In Chicago, being queer and trans and all these things is more accepted, so you don’t have to fight as hard.

“It’s kind of scary that people, especially queer people in Chicago, don’t realize we’re still being subjected to all these things in the South.”

Reed originally came out as a lesbian before realizing they were trans. His family was not accepting, even sending him to a therapist who was pushing conversion therapy, he said.

At the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Reed immediately met many fellow queer students.

“My friends from Chicago barely had any of those stories to tell or harrowing experiences that happened to me and made me who I am,” Reed said.

Reed, a ceramicist, would love to eventually move closer to home and open a studio to help kids like him.

“I want to use my platform to try and raise awareness for queer youth in the South, especially in Kentucky, because that’s a state I feel connected to,” he said. “I hope that in the future I can use this as a way to make kids feel better.”

Reed was photographed near his home in Bridgeport on June 9, 2026.

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‘Building Our Own Place In Chicago’

“I love” Chicago, said Erica Simpson, 36. “I’m not going anywhere any time soon.”

Simpson is originally from rural Arkansas. She originally made her way west to the Bay Area but found herself back in Arkansas around the time of the pandemic. But back home in Arkansas, Simpson did not experience acceptance from her community or family and immediately thought, “I have to get out of here.”

Simpson came to Chicago in February 2021 not knowing a single person — and loved it. She immediately met her partner. The community, food and affordability made it easy to move here, she said.

“There’s not really any reason to go back” to Arkansas, Simpson said. “I just don’t ever feel very comfortable there. My partner doesn’t feel comfortable there. We’re building our own place in Chicago. The amount of people I meet from Arkansas — and they’re all queer. Chicago’s an easy transition.”

Simpson was photographed at home in Andersonville with her French bulldog, Ella, on June 9, 2026.

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‘Embraced By My Community’

“I deeply miss my mountains. I miss the beauty of my state, my home state of North Carolina,” said 41-year-old Sata Prescott, who moved to DeKalb, Illinois, with his husband, both trans men, about 10 years ago. “When I came up here, it was so flat. People who are from here don’t understand how flat it is. …

“But, people are good. I can live here. I can make a good home here. And so I’ll probably live here for the rest of my life. My mom came up here. She’s my last bit of family, so she came up here to be with me. This is home for the foreseeable future.”

Prescott and his husband came to northern Illinois searching for a places that have laws protecting the queer community. Illinois had been steadily passing legislation, and they landed on DeKalb because of a job offer, he said.

“I was never able to get HRT or any kind of gender-affirming care down South. As soon as I got here, I was able to get medical care,” Prescott said.

Prescott still experiences “intense” medical discrimination at times, but it’s less than when he lived in North Carolina, he said.

“I am generally embraced by my community,” he said. “There’s a vibrant queer community just present in the library. There’s a queer book club. That just doesn’t exist where I came from.”

But the area is not perfect, and social media has gotten “a lot more vicious” with how people talk about and treat queer people, Prescott said.

“It’s coming out of the woodwork right now,” Prescott said. “It’s June, it’s Pride Month, so there’s Pride events. The most recent library offering for a rainbow inclusion event … included an anonymous poster saying ‘kill all queers.’

“It was kind of shocking. I’m used to a certain level of bigotry, but that one hurt.”

Prescott was photographed in Schaumburg on June 9, 2026.

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‘Pride Flags In Every Window’

“Moving away gave me the opportunity to figure out who I was,” said 39-year-old Sarah Van Tiegham, who moved to Chicago in 2023. “When I arrived in Chicago, there were Pride flags in every window. People were open to be who they are, and I had never experienced that.”

Van Tiegham was born and raised in Dallas, Texas.

“Although I came from a loving family on my mom’s side, the cultural norms of Texas and the South in general led to me staying closeted until my early 30s,” she said. “As a bisexual woman who presents traditionally feminine, I was able to ‘pass’ for straight and thought that would be easier than showing the world my true self.

“I moved to Chicago in 2023, embraced my queerness and found the love of my life in my wife, whom I married last year.

“I’m grateful Chicago exists where you can be your true, authentic self. I can be a whole person here.”

Van Tiegham was photographed at the Harold Washington Library in Downtown Chicago on June 11, 2026.

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‘It’s Not Really Safe Anywhere In America To Be Trans’

“It was a matter of survival. I was like, if I want to live another year, I need to get the hell out of this town,” said Alice Savage, who moved to Chicago from rural, southern Indiana. “I would be miserable if I stayed. If I was still alive, I would probably just resign myself to a numb life in the closet.

“I basically came to Chicago just to continue living, more or less.”

Savage knew others going to Chicago and knew the city’s large LGBTQ+ population would provide more safety than southern Indiana.

“It’s safety in numbers,” Savage said. “It’s not really safe anywhere in America to be trans. Even in cities like this, I don’t feel 100 percent secure.

“It’s more the fact that I have other queer people around me to sort of help bear the load. Because there are so many queer people in Chicago, there are certain legal protections you just don’t have elsewhere.”

There are things Savage misses about southern Indiana, like the closeness to nature, Savage said.

But “once I started to realize my queerness as a teenager, I just didn’t feel safe with anyone anymore in my hometown,” Savage said. “I didn’t feel like I could trust anybody. I heard all the hate, I regurgitated it, and suddenly I realized, ‘Oh, wait, I am this thing. That makes this a lot harder.’

“Here, it’s home to me because I feel like I can actually be a whole person here. A lot of what I’ve been able to do is because of being in Chicago and being able to live with people who genuinely love and support me, not an idealized version of me that only exists in their heads.”

Savage was photographed in Northalsted on June 11, 2026.

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‘It Wasn’t Safe For Me To Stay In Texas’

“There’s everything you could need in a city,” Samuel Kulovitz said of Chicago. “Transit, food and trans health providers. It gives you the feeling you could live like any other human here.”

Kulovitz, 22, moved from southeast Texas after the 2024 election.

“They had accelerated anti-trans legislation, and I knew it wasn’t safe for me to stay in Texas,” Kulovitz said.

Kulovitz’s mother’s best friend lived in the Chicago area, and that built-in support of having a place to stay while he got on his feet helped him decide to move here.

“Chicago was going to be more expensive than what I’d gotten used to in Texas,” Kulovitz said. “I knew it would be a struggle to get back on my feet. It was a little bit tricky to get my footing financially.”

Kulovitz, whose family is still in Texas, said, “The part of home that has the people is Texas — but this is where my stuff is.”

Kulovitz was photographed at their apartment in Lincoln Square on June 9, 2026.

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‘It’s OK To Be Queer And Here’

“There were almost no Pride flags in Tennessee — as opposed to here in Chicago where all day, every day, all year round, we can see inclusive spaces with Pride regalia of every flavor letting people know that it’s OK to be queer and here,” said CJ Grakens, 39.

Grakens was raised near suburban Arlington Heights and was not accepted when she came out. Grakens ended up moving to Nashville.

“As the political climate changed, I definitely saw a change in the culture surrounding Tennessee, more specifically in the suburbs,” Grakens said. “When I was living in a town called Mt. Juliet, about 20 minutes outside of Nashville, in 2017, the KKK went around town and was tossing out flyers, and one landed on my doorstep. And that was the straw that broke the camels back. I said, ‘I’ve gotta go home.’

“Chicago is home. We are the best city in the world. A global leader. I’m gonna quote Shermann ‘Dilla’ Thomas: ‘Everything dope about America comes from Chicago.’”

“Who you love shouldn’t dictate where you live,” Grakens said.

Grakens was photographed near 31st Street Beach on June 9, 2026.

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‘Home Is Community’

“Where I’m from, queer people have to fight for every ounce of respect and rights that they get,” said 25-year-old Ari Chaney, who moved to Chicago about a year ago from central Missouri.

A positive about Missouri: The more hostile environment creates a greater need to band together and build community, Chaney said.

“It’s obviously a lot more hostile there just for living, but it also builds a community that is always on the lookout and always vigilant on any of those issues,” Chaney said. “I definitely miss that about the community.

“There’s still togetherness here. Obviously, Pride is happening, and that’s a really big thing. And there’s that community that’s about partying and celebrating queerness. But I have found that there is less mutual aid-based community to be found here. It’s a give and take.”

Chaney met their partner in Chicago, which “made my life a lot better,” Chaney said.

“Here, it feels slightly more safe,” Chaney said. “For me, home is community, it’s being around people that I care about and being able to look out for each other and take care of each other.”

Chaney was photographed in Rogers Park on June 11, 2026.

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‘People That I Love’

Steven Rocha, 24, is a middle school social studies teacher who is a trans man. Rocha moved from Florida, arriving in Chicago just a little more than a week ago on June 10.

“If the state of Florida got wind of me presenting as myself, I could’ve gotten into very serious legal trouble,” Rocha said. “I didn’t like the culture of silence and fear in Florida schools, and I decided to move to what I saw as a more progressive district that compensated teachers better for the amount of work that we put in for our students.

“That’s why Chicago.”

In Florida, Rocha faced discrimination through the state’s anti-trans laws — and from family members.

Rocha made a plan to move to Chicago after the school year. They were joined by their partner, Faera Luran, 21, who was also living in Florida, and their best friend, Katharine Smith, 30, who was living in Texas.

“That’s where home is for me, just feeling comfortable with people that I love,” Rocha said.

“I just feel like Chicago was a more open and accepting vibe. I see more displays of Pride. Definitely feel more comfortable here that I do in south Florida. I felt there was an open and accepting vibe. More diversity in how people present themselves and the style that they have.”

Rocha, Luran and Smith were photographed in Brighton Park on June 12, 2026.

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‘I Can Finally Unclench’

“I just thought I’d never be able to leave,” said Faera Luran, 21.

Luran arrived in Chicago on June 10, moving here from Florida.

“I always thought home was somewhere where safety can be nurtured, in a way,” Luran said. “A place where you can look around and, one way or another, at the very least find somewhere you can sit down and decompress and feel better after a long day.”

Living with family in Florida, Luran, a trans woman, never felt relaxed.

“I never felt like I could really unclench my spirit,” Luran said. “I think this is a place where I’lll feel a lot more comfortable and a lot safer and I’ll feel like I can finally unclench.”

Luran was photographed in Brighton Park on June 12, 2026.

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