Gay-iendly towns red stat draw LGBTQ tourists: 'We're here to be normal for a weekend'

Contents:

• GAY-IENDLY TOWNS RED STAT DRAW LGBTQ TOURISTS: 'WE'RE HERE TO BE NORMAL FOR A WEEKEND'
• OLR/ FATTER - NIWEZIJDS GAY SNA

GAY-IENDLY TOWNS RED STAT DRAW LGBTQ TOURISTS: 'WE'RE HERE TO BE NORMAL FOR A WEEKEND'

In Michigan, GOP lawmakers advanced a school fundg proposal that would have barred transgenr athlet om playg on girls’ sports sprg, Detro-area youth activists and anizers marched through downtown Detro to prott Florida’s HB 1557 or “Don’t Say Gay” law, which rtricts school discsns about genr inty and sexualy. We all live small towns, and most of didn’t have the agency to be ourselv durg our public-schoolg atten were a diverse crowd of lovely people, cludg lbian upl, gay upl, nonbary guts and people who are trans.

‘It was the most fun I’d had a long time’Amari Callaway, 26, PhilalphiaI -hosted a queer prom last summer through my queer skate crew Rollg wh the Homos. The one big difference was that selfi were taken on phon stead of disposable meras om 's at this weekend's Queer Prom Chigo"There wasn't anythg for LGBTQ youth of lor their own muny, outsi of Boystown, " said Emmanuel García, referrg to Chigo's tradnally gay Northsi neighborhood. "At the time, the Natnal Mm of Mexin Art produced an Spanish-language LGBTQ rad show lled Homorequencia.

OLR/ FATTER - NIWEZIJDS GAY SNA

In the 90s, my own high school illegally mataed a ban on gay upl attendg.

Too terrified to date, let alone wage war for my right to dance wh a nonexistent boyiend, I didn't bother challengg wasn't until 1994 that a Los Angel school district would sanctn what lled the untry's first public gay and lbian prom. In Utah, a trans stunt, Maka Brown, was named prom queen 2015, a first for a state that was once ground zero for banng Gay-Straight Allianc. — On the unt of three, about 50 gay upl kissed their partners the public square of a small town the Ozark Wilks, the event’s anizer, told the crowd to do over.

But Eureka Sprgs, Wilks, who ns Out Eureka, an LGBTQ event and rmatn anizatn, is workg to create what he se as an oasis: a space for LGBTQ people to explore a quat Southern town while beg weled exactly as they ci and towns red stat have also begun urtg lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer tourists, as a way of showg their openns and bee there’s money to be ma. ”Oklahoma Cy tri to entice LGBTQ tourists wh s annual Memorial Day gay roo and s small but thrivg southwt of Eureka Sprgs, Fayetteville is on a siar missn, tryg to appeal to LGBTQ people Arkansas and neighborg stat, for whom gog on vatn to a major cy is st prohibive — or not at all sirable. “Fire Island is fun, ” he add of the gay statn east of New York Cy, but Wilks wants to rema “te to who Eureka is” — a small town that’s wood, Southern and super gay.