A seat at the table: Tom Chiola

Elections and the LGBTQ community

The national Victory Fund recently released a timeline of key moments in national LGBTQ election history. But given that all (most) politics is local, there were of course many missing moments across the country, when the “first” openly LGBTQ elected officials made a huge difference in their communities. Firsts are still happening every year. But in Illinois, our first openly LGBTQ official happened in 1994—25 years before we got our first openly LGBTQ mayor.

There had been several high-profile people running for office or getting appointed prior to 1994. I charted a lot of that and more recent successes in a joint project with the Chicago Reader and Windy City Times in 2019, after Lori Lightfoot was elected mayor of Chicago. See that project here.

But the first big local victory happened when Tom Chiola became the first openly gay person to win a major public office in Illinois. He won a seat on the bench of the Circuit Court of Cook County.

I covered Tom’s campaign—it was an incredible effort. He was up against the Democratic machine—they would not put him on the sample ballot; he was running in a subcircuit with lots of challengers; and the subcircuit covered a lot of geographic ground from north to south. Getting the machine backing was critical to winning a judicial post—those races are down ballot, and you are fighting real power when you don’t get on the sample ballots handed out to voters across a district.

But Tom really worked. I know, because I saw a white gay man going into all parts of our community, and the mainstream, to fight for his seat at the table. From early morning train stops to late-night drag shows, Tom really paid his dues. I photographed him all over the place, including at very non-political events I just happened to be covering.

Tom was also very involved in the LGBTQ community, from the Proud to Run race to supporting other important causes, including HIV/AIDS groups, and IMPACT, an LGBTQ political organization. He was not a one-hit wonder seeking power, he was well-liked in the community, and he earned his seat. He won and celebrated with a traditional election-night party at the de facto gay community center, upstairs at Tom Tunney’s Ann Sather restaurant on Belmont. Tunney himself would later become first an appointed and then elected alderman, of the 44th ward, breaking ground as the city’s first openly gay alderman.

Chiola was also really supportive of the many LGBTQ judges that came after him. We know Chiola, who retired in 2009, was not the first LGBTQ person holding office in Illinois. But it was the “openly” that mattered. That cracked open the door for dozens of judges, aldermen, state reps and state senators. And even the mayor of Chicago.

I am posting here photos by myself and other Windy City Times/Outlines photographers, from Chiola’s 1994 election night celebration and swearing in. See Tom’s Hall of Fame bio here. Spot a future governor in the pics, and Tunney. Plus Chiola’s mom and campaign strategic Michael Bauer—both now gone.