Like the skies after a storm — which Lake County has seen plenty of this spring — June saw rainbows appear across the county, as residents celebrated Pride Month 2026 and reflected upon how the county has changed over the last decade.
But while Lake County has become a suburban bastion for the LGBTQ+ community, according to some, that broad support is still relatively new in many regards, community members said.
Attitudes today are a far cry from the days of Kristal Larson’s youth. A trans woman, Larson is the executive director of the LGBTQ+ Center of Lake County and was the first transgender elected official in the county’s history, serving several years as clerk for Avon Township.
Growing up in the ‘80s, it was “scary to even think about being gay,” she said.
“Being gay was going to get you AIDS, and you’d be dead,” Larson said. “People were still very ridiculed for that back in the ‘80s.”
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Gregory Brown, who moved to Waukegan about seven years ago, also recalled decades past. He’s old enough to remember how different the culture used to be for a gay man like himself.
“The AIDS epidemic was a horrific time in our community, and a loss of many, many great creative lives,” he said.
But times would change. As the AIDS epidemic continued, public anger across the country grew, including in Lake County. It would be the first of Chicago’s collar counties to open an AIDS clinic, in the summer of 1993 in Waukegan.
“It was the very beginning of destigmatizing the county,” Larson said.
Still, decades later, in 2020, when Larson came out, there was “really nothing Pride-related” in Lake County, officially at least. But the last six years have seen a transformation; it’s gone from a desert to a community with “all kinds of resources,” she said.
“We see little signs and affirmations and things suggesting that most of Lake County is a safe place,” Larson said. “It’s really become this cute little mecca, but it’s still distinctly Lake County.”
She attributed the shift, in part, to changes on the state and federal levels. Gay marriage was legalized in America in 2015, and Illinois saw a “huge push” of progressive support.
And locally, six years ago saw the rise of two Lake County queer community organizations — the LGBTQ+ Center of Lake County and Waukegan Friends, both founded in 2020. Brown, a founding member of Waukegan Friends, said both organizations have helped build official, municipal support for Pride events.
Part of those efforts, Brown emphasized, has been building “bridges with the straight community.”
In 2023, there was Lake County’s first municipal-backed Pride parade in Waukegan, and other events have continued to sprout across the county in numerous communities. And while Lake County has seen hotspots of the broader national culture war, its “holding very strong,” Larson argued.
“Our communities have risen back up and said, ‘Please go away. You can’t do that here. You can go do that somewhere else,’” she said.
Elliot Boznik is a student at the College of Lake County and a youth leader, and describes themself as “transmasc.” Compared to the world Larson grew up in, Boznik was raised in a far different environment, coming out as gay around 2017 as a young teen and then trans a year later. Originally growing up in Waukegan, Boznik later moved to Grayslake.
Across Lake County this year, Boznik noted the Pride flags openly displayed on lawns across the county and signs promoting Pride Fest.
“There’s no more fear to put that outside your house,” Boznik said. “There’s almost this idea of people wanting to make their houses a safe place.”
Brown noted that the counterprotesters and gun threats that plagued early Pride parades have largely disappeared, and today’s events see thousands of attendees, including numerous straight allies.
But Larson warned the county is “still a very fledgling community,” and there is “a lot of work still to be done.” For instance, there are still issues with health care access for the LGBTQ community, she said, and some are travelling to Chicago for services.
“Those are things that we’re hoping we can bring to Lake County over the next five to 10 years,” Larson said. “So people have that safe space in their backyards, and we can continue to grow that community and make it even safer and more resilient into the future.”
Brown is excited for next year’s Pride Month — events are growing every year, and more and more communities are officially declaring themselves welcoming.