Minneapolis gay scene
Lex's Guide to Lgbtq+ Minneapolis Nightlife | LGBTQ+ Bars
Explore gender non-conforming nightlife in Minneapolis with this capital guide! We’re compiling lists of homosexual bars and parties in major cities so you don’t have to 💅
Minneapolis has developed into a queer hub in the midwest, featuring fun Queer clubs like Stonewall Sports and more. The LGBTQ+ nightlife scene is compact but mighty, featuring friendly bars and fun dance parties so you can mix and mingle with local gay friends, whether you’re a local or just visiting. Let’s get into our list!
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1. The Saloon
One of the largest LGBTQ+ bars in the Midwest, The Saloon bids multiple levels of entertainment, from sway floors and queenly shows to pool tables and patio seating. With its vibrant atmosphere and diverse crowd, The Saloon is a must-visit for anyone exploring Minneapolis' Gay nightlife or looking for a entertainment night out during Pride.
The Saloon
Hennepin Ave
Minneapolis, MN
2. LUSH
Known for its packed events schedule, LUSH offers kingly shows, dance nights, drag brunch
The Pride Behind Pride
It’s the year Pride is cancelled. This is very tough to say out boisterous. It feels like saying we’re cancelling joy and progress. Of course, the cancelling of Pride—the festival, the parade, the week when tens of thousands of far-flung LGBTQ peeps come streaming home—represents an act of love to keep people healthy.
But its absence presents us with an opportunity to consider all the profound and important local LGBTQ landmarks that built Pride—and often disappeared. Living in a city is complicated. Each of us lives in a unlike Twin Cities: We contribute the Foshay Tower and the Mississippi, but we go home to distinct bars and bedrooms.
LGBTQ cultures have, historically, needed to hide their bars and bedrooms for fear of eviction, firing, imprisonment, or worse. As Ricardo J. Brown place it in his St. Paul memoir, The Evening Crowd at Kirmser’s—one of the best midth century looks at American same-sex attracted experience—the LGBTQ life was “a ruse that kept all of us safe,” conducted in “a fort in the midst of a savage and unfriendly population.”
&In the Twin Cities and around the country, queer bars are dying.
But—and catch us out here—maybe that’s not entirely a awful thing?
In his new manual Long Live Queer Nightlife: How the Closing of Gay Bars Sparked a Revolution, sociologist Amin Ghaziani argues that the decline of the gay block has been the open of a renaissance, ushering in an era of pop-up parties and gyrate nights that offer an experience that’s more evolving, more inclusive, and more interesting than the brick-and-mortar bars that predated them. Greggor Mattson, in his book Who Needs Male lover Bars?, makes a similar case, asking for whom these bars exist and exploring whether they’re actually disappearing so much as evolving.
In many communities, and the Twin Cities is certainly one of them, you can get a sense for what that evolution looks like. Minneapolis and St. Paul are home to an ever-changing underground network of lgbtq+ culture and events; ad hoc dance parties and alternative club nights favor The Klituation, GRRRL Scout, Daddy Issues, and Cyber City Disco are as reliably fun and, in many circles, as popula
Minneapolis Gay City Guide: Land of the Lakes and LGBTQ Inclusion
Nestled along the banks of the Mississippi River lies the vivacious Twin Cities, otherwise known as Minneapolis. A hub of arts and culture, it’s a urban area with spirit. In this town, every neighborhood is a gayborhood and every door is open.
A Brief History of Minneapolis
When French explorers arrived in , the Dakota Sioux were the region’s sole residents. The U.S. Army built Fort Snelling in , which attracted settlers, traders, and merchants. The entire town was developed around the beautiful St. Anthony Falls, the highest waterfall on the Mississippi River.
The forests were a valuable resource for the lumber industry soon after. Minneapolis became the father of modern milling. Today, the town has one of the top park systems in the territory and is abundantly rich in water. It’s a flourishing mecca for the LGBTQ community that leans more toward the arts, then it’s industrial birth.
Stats on Minneapolis
- The city is home to a total of 13 lakes.
- Minneapolis is one of the most giving citi