Zachary Blair

Below are some clippings from Chicago's Gay Life, chronicling some of the gay neighborhood's most prominent gay bars in and around New Town—the neighborhood that would become known as Boystown. These "featurettes" cover Little Jim's located at 3501 N. Halsted (which remains at this location today and has long been considered the first gay bar on the Halsted Strip), Virgo Out at 2546 N. Clark Street (then considered the center of gay life in Chicago), and Augie's at 3729 N. Ha

When I went to the Pulse Nightclub on the night of June 10, 2017, the first thing I saw was a sign posted with rules of the nightclub parking lot turned memorial. "We ask that visitors maintain proper etiquette, personal behavior, and conduct at all times." This need to construct sacred space through disciplining bodies was a disturbing reminder of the oppressive forces that are always at play. Partnered with an ever present police force, memorial tourists striking somber pos

For the next few months, I will be writing short pieces here about key moments documented through my fieldwork in Chicago's Boystown that will not be making it to the final manuscript of my dissertation. This moment was one of my favorites. I've also included some amazing (shaky) camera-work from the field. Walking down Broadway through the East Lakeview Arts Festival in the Fall of 2009, Dev turned to me and said, “This is so much different than Gay Pride or Market Days. Eve

While writing a recent article on Pulse, I came across this dilemma when researching the reported protest of thousands of people against gay marriage in Puerto Rico in 2013. While I only briefly referenced the protest in an effort to contextualize experiences of homophobia and heteronormativity in Puerto Rico, I wanted to make sure I had correct facts about the religious protest–mainly that the large protest actually happened the way that informants had recollected. I vaguely

Six months after the Pulse shooting, Orlando launched a "Safe Places" program in an effort to help victims of LGBT violence through "symbolic safety." "It is a voluntary program which allows businesses and other establishments to designate themselves as places that will report anti-LGBT incidents and allow victims to come inside and call police... Participating establishments are placing a rainbow-colored decal in their windows. In large letters, the stickers read ‘Report ant

In the days after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States, acts of racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, and misogyny that invoke the president-elect have made headlines. These events, along with a generalized fear and anxiety about and the future of the country, have sparked numerous movements around the creation of safe space. The donning of the safety pin has become a widespread and contested movement, critiqued for its racial politics and slacktivism (alternat

Reportedly, 150,000 attended Orlando Pride. This was the first Pride Parade after the Pulse nightclub shooting. The usual corporate sponsors were there, including Wells Fargo despite their recent scandal. Here are some photos of the event. #OrlandoPride #Pride #gaypride #Orlando #Florida #LGBT #gay #LakeEola #DowntownOrlando

Last week, the City of Orlando released the 911 calls made by Omar Mateen, the shooter who killed 49 people and injured 68 at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. You can read the full transcripts here. Omar's main message, which he repeated over and over, was to end the airstrikes in Syria and Iraq. Here are some excerpts of what Mateen said to police while still inside of the club: "... You have to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq. They are killing a lot of i

To accompany my conference presentation at Spaces and Flows this month, I created an interactive presentation. This digital component is meant to supplement the information provided at each conference, providing additional information, additional resources, and the larger framework for this research project. To access the interactive presentation, please click on the following link: https://spark.adobe.com/page/U16zVZkuxFB71/ If you have any issues accessing this presentation

When Republicans are not slipping legislation into the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that legalizes, expands, or protects discrimination against LGBT people, Democrats use the annual defense bill as a strategy to pass legislation intended to "protect" LGBT people by tying it to military spending and expansion. This “strange coupling of civil rights and national security,” first occurred with the marriage of the NDAA of 2010 and the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd,

The Orange County Regional History Center is doing an amazing job collecting items and documenting all of the memorials of the mass shooting at Pulse. Even if you have visited the sites, there are things that you may not have seen available digitally. Check out the digital memorial here: http://www.thehistorycenter.org/digital-memorial/ #OrangeCounty #Pulse #massshooting #massacre #shooting #LGBT #gay #gaybar #nightclub #memorial #OrangeCountyRegionalHistoryCenter #history

Here are some photos of Pride and Market Days from 2007-2010, which I took during my ethnographic fieldwork in Boystown, Chicago. #gay #LGBT #LGBTQ #LGBTQ #gaypride #pride #chicago #boystown #photographs #ethnography #pictures #parade #festival #street #public #gayneighborhood #gentrification #party #neighborhood #queer

These photos were taken at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando on September 22, 2016. The signs, gifts, and offerings that were left at the club over the past few months had been moved. It seemed barren, but slowly people were bringing more things - candles, pictures, flowers, stuffed animals... A new fence was installed, and on it large canvas murals of local artwork were draped to hide the building. When I went, there were only a handful of people. Three women were filming a doc

I went to the Orlando Public Library downtown to check out the Paint Strong exhibit. It's interesting to visually see how place and economy are situated in mourning and thought through art. Here are the pieces that stuck out to me the most: #Pulse #art #paintings #acrylic #memorial #shooting #orlando #orlandostrong #orlandounited #paintstrong #LGBT #gay

These are photographs of the memorial crosses at Lake Beauty taken on July 9, 2016 in Orlando, FL. #pulse #memorial #crosses #lakebeauty #orlando #massacre #shooting #LGBT #gay

These are photographs of the memorial in front of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Orlando. This was the site of the first city-wide memorial of the Pulse shooting. Taken on July 9, 2016. #DrPhillips #performingarts #orlando #downtown #pulse #memorial #shooting #massshooting #LGBT #gay

These are photographs of the memorial in front of the Pulse nightclub taken on July 9, 2016 in Orlando, FL. #pulse #nighclub #orlando #shooting #memorial #offerings #massacre #massshooting #LGBTQ #lgbt #aftermath