Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) laughed along with a social media user who mocked him earlier this month for a pair of shorts he’s wearing in a famous 1993 photo at a Pride parade.
In the photo, Pritzker is marching down the street holding a sign that says, “Fighting for your rights in Illinois.” He is smiling, wearing sunglasses and a collared shirt tucked into high-waisted patterned shorts. The photo is black and white, but it seems likely that the shorts are very colorful.
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“This photo of pritzker always makes me laugh because what the f**k are those shorts,” someone wrote on May 3.
Showcasing an ability to laugh at himself, Pritzker shared the comment and replied, “They were in at the time, I swear!”
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As governor, Pritzker has staunchly defended LGBTQ+ rights and has been especially outspoken for trans youth. He told Late Show host Stephen Colbert last year that his late mother was a huge activist who took him to protests when she was young. Her life, he said, inspired the work he does.
And photos like the one of him in silly shorts in 1993 show that he has been fighting for queer people since long before it was popular.
At a March 2025 Human Rights Campaign dinner, Pritzker vowed to stand up to anti-LGBTQ+ “bullies” and spoke directly to transgender youth to tell them they are not alone.
“And in the midst of this existential fight, this battle that seems to consume everything, well, let’s not take the soul-sucking path of sacrificing the most persecuted for that which we deem to be most popular.”
“I know that there are transgender children right now looking out at this world and wondering if anyone is going to stand up for them and for their simple right to exist. Well, I am. We are. We will.”
In April of last year, he criticized “do-nothing” Democratic politicians who “want to blame our [election] losses on our defense of Black people, of trans kids, of immigrants instead of their own lack of guts and gumption.” He encouraged Democrats to “fight” the current presidential administration “everywhere and all at once,” even endorsing “mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption.”
Last summer, he also announced a landmark free hotline for LGBTQ+ people in the state.
In 2023, he signed a landmark bill making Illinois the first state to bar libraries from banning books.
“Here in Illinois, we don’t hide from the truth, we embrace it,” said Pritzker in a statement. “Young people shouldn’t be kept from learning about the realities of our world; I want them to become critical thinkers, exposed to ideas that they disagree with, proud of what our nation has overcome, and thoughtful about what comes next.”
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May 17, 2026 at 04:14PM
Illinois Delivered 