Void, a Chicago-based Italian eatery, marked Pride Month with a pop-up parody targeting Chick-fil-A, the fast-food chain that has long been criticized for its past support of anti-LGBTQ initiatives and organizations.
“Chick-feel-Gay” appeared for one day only, on June 22, at a storefront at 2937 N. Milwaukee Street, in Chicago’s Avondale neighborhood.
The menu featured chef and co-owner Dani Kaplan’s version of the famous Chick-fil-A fried chicken sandwich, along with waffle fries, dipping sauces, and chicken nuggets.
For dessert, the team served vanilla-flavored, rainbow-colored cake slices — shaped like the Progress Pride flag and topped with buttercream frosting and rainbow sprinkles — even though cake isn’t on Chick-fil-A’s menu.
The Chick-feel-Gay pop-up even featured a rainbow-colored logo styled to mimic Chick-fil-A’s signature script.
“We took the sandwich and left out the bigotry,” Void wrote in an Instagram post promoting the event. “You’re welcome.”
The pop-up pledged to donate 20% of its proceeds to Brave Space Alliance, a Black- and trans-led LGBTQ center on Chicago’s South Side — an implicit jab at Chick-fil-A, which has faced backlash over past donations to anti-LGBTQ groups and its founder’s claim that same-sex marriage invites “God’s judgment” on the nation.
Chick-fil-A recently announced plans to open another location in Chicago, where it already operates 13 restaurants. According to Chicago Eater, the chain intends to take over Bonne Sante Health Foods, a decades-old business that has served the city’s liberal Hyde Park neighborhood — home to the University of Chicago — for the past 25 years. The plan has reportedly upset some residents, who are dismayed to see a health food store replaced by a fried chicken chain.
The proposed Chick-fil-A would also occupy the storefront directly beneath the headquarters of Brave Space Alliance — setting up a potential clash between the fast-food chain, known for its anti-LGBTQ reputation, and a pro-transgender organization that provides HIV testing, medical referrals, counseling, transitional housing, food, and support services for LGBTQ people and sex workers on the South Side.
“For me, it reinforces that the corporation doesn’t do their homework,” Brave Space CEO Channyn Lynne Parker told Chicago Eater.
Parker said she was surprised by Chick-fil-A’s plans and worries that having the restaurant downstairs — and the implicit message its presence sends to LGBTQ people — could harm her organization’s ability to connect with clients.
“We’re more than an office space, we’re literally a lifeline for our community members on the South Side of Chicago,” Parker said.
A Chick-fil-A spokesperson told Chicago Eater that the new restaurant is expected to create between 80 and 120 jobs.
Parker hopes Chick-fil-A will build relationships with neighbors like Brave Space Alliance — perhaps by hiring from within the community or allowing the group to provide LGBTQ cultural competency training to staff and “learn from communities they’ve historically harmed.”
But she emphasized that the restaurant must take concrete steps to engage Brave Space Alliance — not just offer platitudes — if it truly wants to be part of the community.
Grindr, the gay hookup app for men seeking sex with men, reportedly prevents users from adding "no Zionists" to their profile.
404 Media first reported that several users who tried to add "no Zionists" to their profiles were blocked from doing so. Those users were likely signaling opposition to Israel's military campaign in Gaza or expressing support for the Palestinian cause.
When 404 Media reporter Samantha Cole tried adding "No Zionists" to a new Grindr account, she received an error message reading, "The following are not allowed: no zionist, no zionists" -- the same message reported by users who had tipped her off.
I first saw Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain in 2005, at a three-screen, not-for-profit cinema in suburban Washington state. I went with my then-boyfriend, and for the next two hours and fourteen minutes, I wept silently next to him.
At 16, I came into political consciousness as the second Bush administration fought to maintain a conservative bulwark against progress by endorsing a constitutional amendment defining marriage in strictly heterosexual terms. While I was out, I felt righteously angry that others felt I should hide who I knew myself to be.
Twenty years after the film's release, Brokeback Mountain returned to theaters. The end of June also marked a decade of nationwide marriage equality thanks to Obergefell v. Hodges, in which the Supreme Court granted homosexual couples the "equal dignity" afforded to our heterosexual counterparts. Today, I go to the movies with my husband. And sitting in the cool, dark of the cinema last week, I reflected on the ways Brokeback Mountain helped change the national discourse and still resonates in deep, meaningful ways for people across the country.
D.C. police are searching for three men who allegedly hurled anti-trans slurs at 43-year-old Cayla Calhoun before brutally attacking her and leaving her with serious injuries.
Calhoun, a sommelier and bartender at Annabelle restaurant, left work around midnight on June 29 and stopped at the Golden Age, a nearby bar, for a quick beer, according to The Advocate.
After leaving Golden Age, Calhoun rode a Onewheel electric board through Georgetown and along Rock Creek Parkway. Near the National Mall, three men on scooters emerged and began shouting anti-LGBTQ slurs at her.
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