Parallel Play 📍 Chicago 🏳️‍🌈

We're so glad you found Parallel Play Chicago! Your people are waiting for you 😷 Established in April 2024, Parallel Play is a non-profit org who seeks to center the liberation of LGBTQIA+, immunocompromised or disabled individuals, and BIPOC through mutual aid, supply drives, and collaborative arts partnerships. We do this by: hosting COVID-safer, accessible events that foster connection; distributing mutual aid & PPE resources; and helping build networks of care within our community. All events are respirator mask-required (k/n95 or equivalent) & provided, air purified, and wheelchair accessible. Given the ongoing need for safer spaces for COVID-cautious & disabled people, Parallel Play has established a series of virtual and in-person (mask-required) events called Dilly Dally, and we need your help to fund them! All of our events are free or have $0 - $30 sliding scale tickets. Please consider a contribution to our GiveButter at the link in our bio to support us as we make sure folks have financial and physical access to these community spaces. If interested in collaborating or organizing with us, please send us an email or fill out the form in our bio! We’d love to work together and keep building COVID-informed community that’s rooted in disability justice 😊 We can't wait to Dilly Dally with you soon! 😷 -Parallel Play Chicago New logo by @leahlu.art 💜

Happy 1st birthday to the Parallel Play Chicago community! If you found this post, that means you have either heard about us or attended our events, and you want to support us. You are awesome! It is through your continued gifts that we are able to offer equitable COVID-safer programming year round. For the sake of organization transparency, this annual report has been lovingly compiled by our organizers to give our community insight on who we are and how we use the funds that come from donations. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this report and being a part of our community! If you have feedback or want to get involved as a new organizer, please fill out our feedback/volunteer form. Stay tuned for our 2025 event calendar, to be announced by early May. It is an act of profound resistance to ableism, white-supremacy, colonialism, and all other systems that marginalize us to practice COVID precautions in 2025. Those who are “still COVID-ing” have been pathologized by others, isolated from our communities, and pushed to the sidelines of a society engaging in systemic denial of the ongoing harms of COVID for way too long. Parallel Play is about the collective healing power of safer spaces designed for our play, rest, and care. We are humbled to have created this community with you, and can’t wait for another year of safely Dilly Dallying together! With care and gratitude, Parallel Play Chicago Image Description: A set of 14 slides recapping the finances, events, fundraising, and growing members and affiliates of Parallel Play over the past year. The full transcript can be found embedded in alt text, and at parallelplaychi.org The design style is in pastels to generally match the pastel purple, magenta and mint Parallel Play logo. The slide backgrounds are a light lavendar textured with white halftone dotes in sections. Pastel blue to pink squiggles and rainbow reflective amorphous 3d rendered shapes accent the design, forcing the text heavy slides to shape around them. Body text is a basic san serif in a dark purple, with headers in a bold serif font in magenta with a tiny offset of blue giving a 3d effect Image ID continued in pinned comments

Come Dilly Dally with Parallel Play Chicago at our second annual mask-required clothing swap and DJ dance party to celebrate Pride month! 🌈 This event is also co-hosted by @center_on_halsted and supported by @bravespacealliance Air purifiers provided by @clean.air.club 🎟 This is a free event to attend, but we do ask folks attending to RSVP at the link in our bio or by visiting bit.ly/ppclothingswap ♿ You can find the full access guide in the link in our bio or by visiting https://drive.proton.me/urls/K8VZ3WAPWG#LQ5wGKx1eEu Please observe the 7-10 item limit unless you’ve got some real finds or have lots of plus-size clothing you are wanting to share! If you’d like to bring more than 10 pieces with you, please email us at [email protected] Feel free to contact us with any further questions and we look forward to seeing you all there! 💖 Image Description [ID]: Text reads: “Clothing Swap + Pride Dance Party. Masks required and provided. 7-10 item limit unless you’ve got some real finds then email: [email protected]. All genders and sizes welcome! Saturday June 20th / 2-5pm. Center on Halsted / 3656 N Halsted St / 3rd floor gym. Free RSVP bit.ly/ppclothingswap. Spacious gymnasium with air purification / wheelchair accessible / elevator / accessible all gender bathrooms.” Light purple and blue flyer with a pastel rainbow in the center background. The Parallel Play, Center on Halsted and Brave Space Alliance logos are at the top of the image. There is a spikey circle with a purple kn95. In the middle of the flyer, there are clothing racks with multicolored items of clothing on the right and left side. In front of the clothing racks, there are five illustrated people where two plus size people are posing, two people are dancing and one person is sitting in a wheelchair.

Call for Interviews: Trans Long Haulers & Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) We are looking to interview trans Long Haulers (people living with/experiencing symptoms of Long Covid) who are currently on HRT or have paused HRT due to resulting symptom burden and inflammatory immune response. Preferance is for BIPOC sources, but ANYONE is welcome to be interviewed. This story will assess impacts to HRT access as growing COVID-19 related disability disproportionately impacts trans communities-featuring narrative throughlines to the AIDS epidemic. We would like to conduct filmed, in-person, and masked interviews in the Chicago area for any trans Long Hauler that fits the previous slide’s criteria. Otherwise, anyone in the US can be interviewed either on-record, meaning name will be cited in piece, or on background, meaning zero quotes or voice will be used in-story. If you are interested in either an in-person or virtual interview, please contact Khalil Dennis at [email protected] or leave a comment expressing interest! Thank you for your support, and please share with people whose stories may be best included and amplified. #callforsources #longcovid #covid #disability #transpublichealth

UPDATE: Delgado will vote Yes, so we're removing her from the call-list! Keep calling the others! *********** Our hearing in the House Immigration & Human Rights Committee was just cancelled. We’re working behind the scenes, doing everything we can to get this decision reversed. If we get our hearing back, we may not have a lot of time. And we need to make sure we actually have the votes to pass. So what we need right now is for everyone to call these other, undecided members of this committee, and to get them on our side. If your State Representative is on this list, let them know you’re their constituent! For all others, emphasize that you are a concerned Illinois resident who cares about (for example) disability rights, public health, civil liberties, and workers’ rights. If you know anyone who is in any of their districts who would be willing to call as a constituent, please mobilize your networks! If you don’t live in Illinois but have a direct connection (such as travel, business, family, etc), you can make calls and include that information, while adding that you want legislation like this in your state and Illinois can lead the way! Human Rights & Immigration Committee: Rep. Sonya M. Harper: 217-782-0275, 773-925-6580 Rep. Elizabeth Hernandez: 217-782-8173, 708-222-5240 Rep. Charles Meier: 217-782-6401, 618-651-0405 Script here: https://bit.ly/UrgentCalls

UPDATE, May 12th: OUR HEARING WAS CANCELLED. Look at our new post for more information and what to do. ****** We wish we were writing with better news, but things are not looking great right now for our bill. Certain members of the Immigration & Human Rights Committee want to kill it. We're doing everything we can to not let that happen, but it's not going to work unless we can show them overwhelming support. We're not going to target the naysayers just this second (if we switch gears, you'll be the first to know), instead we're going to focus on calling other folks on the committee who are still undecided. If you've already called these ones, call them again. Rope-a-dope a friend and get them to make calls, too. Rep. Eva-Dina Delgado: 217-782-0480, 773-237-4558 Rep. Sonya M. Harper: 217-782-0275, 773-925-6580 Rep. Elizabeth Hernandez: 217-782-8173, 708-222-5240 Rep. Charles Meier: 217-782-6401, 618-651-0405 Call template: bit.ly/Call4KikisLaw And if you haven't already, please fill out a witness slip. It a quick, 1-2 min action and is crucial to tally support. Witness slip instructions: bit.ly/Slip4SB3340 We don't mean to be dramatic—we try not to be—but it's actually do-or-die time. If they succeed in tanking the bill in the House Committee, we most likely will wind up having to start all over from scratch next year. That means, start all over in the Senate, too. I know everyone is busy and tired, but we need to pull out all the stops over the next 48 hours to try to save our bill. SOLIDARITY.

📢 CANCELLED due to performer illness! Stay tuned for future masked performances and sorry for the inconvenience. Stay well, friends! THIS SUNDAY! $5 tickets to Filament Theater’s mask-required performance of a new play called “Farewell Opportunity” Parallel Play will be molecular testing performers. KN95 or N95 masks are required. Friends of Parallel Play can use code PPCHI for $5 tickets to Sunday’s 6 pm mask-required performance. DM Parallel Play to claim an available pair of free tickets. Ticket link and Filament Theater access info can be found in our bio! Theater is ADA accessible. About the show: In June 2018, Halley visits the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab and meets the Opportunity Mars rover. The two have something in common: a curious spirit and a shortened life-expectancy. Halley and the NASA scientist in charge of the Mars mission find themselves transformed by an unlikely friendship—with each other, and with a rolling robot millions of miles away. With poetic language and magical realism, Farewell Opportunity explores the question “How do you keep on roving when you—or someone you love—faces a dust storm that threatens to block out the sun?” With Halley, audiences are transported to Mars and explore life alongside history’s beloved Opportunity rover in this new interactive play from Chicago playwright, Georgette Kelly. When: May 10 at 6pm Where: Filament theatre (4041 N Milwaukee in Portage Park, Chicago) Who: All ages welcome, best enjoyed by ages 5+ Content Warning: This play explores themes of childhood illness, mortality, and complicated sibling relationships. This production contains brief moments of flashing lights. Please email [email protected] with any questions. @filamentplays Image ID in comments

We need witness slips for the Right-to-Mask RIGHT AWAY. We were just assigned our House hearing, and it's in less than a week. How to do it: bit.ly/Slip4SB3340 Our hearing in the House Human Rights & Immigration Committee is Wednesday, May 13th at 2 PM CT. We need "proponent" witness slips to show the Committee how much people want this. If we don't pass out of committee, the bill dies. Don't let it. Please forward this request to everyone (yes, everyone) you know–whether they live in Illinois or not! Blast it on your socials, send it to any groups you're a part of. And, if you submitted a witness slip for the Senate hearing, yes, you should submit another one!

🚨URGENT!!🚨 ‼️ Mari has now been abandoned by her neglectful ‘caregiver’ and needs immediate support for longterm safe care, food and survival needs ‼️ ➡️ gofundme.com/marigfm Mari is still $5900 off the target set for April, required to stay on track to be able to move out in the next few months and afford care, medical and survival needs for 6 months. We are still a way off that goal. Being abandoned means she’s now needing to pay for care even earlier than anticipated. Could you commit to a monthly donation to ensure Mari can receive enough care to survive on her own? DoorDash vouchers from Mari’s wishlist are one of the most useful ways you can help right now: ➡️ bit.ly/marisurvivalneeds (wishlist) Please reshare this post regularly and answer the Qs in the comments! ⬇️ Tags: #chronicillness, #communitycare, #SevereME, #MECFS #myalgicencephalomyelitis

We're gearing up for our big push in the House, and to make sure we have all our ducks in a row, we're checking in to ask who your state representative is. Some House reps may be 'on the fence' about the Right-to-Mask, and when that happens, they want to do their due diligence to make sure folks who live in their districts support this — and not just folks calling from outside of their districts. That's why it's always helpful to be able to find specific constituents at a moment's notice. Please fill out this Google Form and let us know who your state rep is: bit.ly/ILmeetings If we have some reps who are hemming and hawing, we'll mobilize specific constituents to make more calls to their office, and possibly set up a (virtual) meeting. Things in the House will likely ramp up fast, so filling out this form will go a long way to helping us act even faster. Oh, and if you haven't already, please sign our virtual thank you card for our wonderful Illinois Senators who supported the Right-to-Mask on the Senate floor! bit.ly/Thx4PMEFA (Both links are at the top of our LinkTree!)

IMPORTANT UPDATE! Unfortunately SB3340 wasn’t called today! Stay tuned and we will update with possible action items! * * * * * * * Our Right-to-Mask bill is on the Senate floor RIGHT NOW. Join our Watch Party to tune in to the discussion and vote. Chat with us, commiserate, celebrate, worry - we’ll be doing it all! Watch Party will be on Jitsi and we’ll post the link in stories when our bill is called! If you’d like to watch all by your lonesome (aww), you can see the proceedings here (click on “Senate Chamber”, the first option under Video Feeds): https://ilga.gov/Senate/AudioVideo SOLIDARITY!

After Passing out of the Illinois Senate Human Rights Committee, SB3340 and HB4848 known as Kiki’s Law, or The Protective Medical Equipment Freedom Act, is landmark legislation that “enshrine[s] the right to wear protective medical equipment in any place of public accommodation where an individual has a lawful right to be—without obligation to disclose health status or any other protected information,” according to a coalition of organizations across Illinois, including Care Not COVID, Access Living, Progress Center for Independent Living, and the Arc of Illinois. In this segment of Conversations on COVID, I spoke to Sebastian Nalls (he/him), Access Living’s Healthcare/HCBS Policy Analyst to discuss Kiki’s Law, its importance to Illinois residents and people across the nation, and what steps are needed to ensure the bill’s success. To learn more about this effort, visit pmefa.org and follow @carenotcovidchi for updates. #covid #publichealth #disability #disabilityjustice #chronicillness