Tracy Baim

Tracy Baim is publisher and executive editor at Windy City Media Group, which produces Windy City Times, Nightspots, and other gay media. She co-founded Windy City Times in 1985 and Outlines newspaper in 1987. She has won numerous gay community and journalism honors, including the Community Media Workshop’s Studs Terkel Award in 2005. She started in Chicago gay journalism in 1984 at GayLife newspaper, one month after graduating with a news-editorial degree from Drake University.

Baim is the author, co-author and/or editor of:
-- Gay Press, Gay Power: The Growth of LGBT Community Newspapers in America
-- Obama and the Gays: A Political Marriage.
-- Out and Proud in Chicago: An Overview of the City’s Gay Movement (2008, Agate), the first comprehensive book on Chicago’s gay history. -- Where the World Meets, a photo book about Gay Games VII in Chicago (2007, Lulu.com—Baim served as co-vice chair of the Gay Games board);
-- The Half Life of Sgt. Jen Hunter, a novel about lesbians in the military, which was adapted for the Chicago stage and performed at American Theater Company in 2004.
-- Leatherman: The Legend of Chuck Renslow, co-written with Owen Keehnen
-- Jim Flint: The Boy From Peoria, co-written with Owen Keehnen
-- Mom: A Tribute to Mothers of LGBTs

In 2013, she produced a 2400-question LGBTQ trivia game: That's So Gay! to help counter negative comments about the community.

Baim was executive producer of the lesbian feature film Hannah Free (2008, Ripe Fruit Films), starring Sharon Gless.

She also produced Scrooge & Marley, a gay Christmas film out December 2012.

She was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 1994 and was named a Crain’s Chicago Business 40 Under 40 leader in 1995.

Baim is a native Chicagoan and has been with her partner, 20-year Air Force veteran Jean Albright, since 1994.