THE BEST Los Angel Gay Clubs & Bars (Updated 2023)

Contents:

• THE BT GAY CISG SPOTS LOS ANGEL
• THE BT GAY BARS AND CLUBS LOS ANGEL
• THE BEST LOS ANGEL GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS LOS ANGEL
• LOS ANGEL GAY MAP

THE BT GAY CISG SPOTS LOS ANGEL

Utterly breathtakg, this inic tablishment was crowned LOGO's "Bt Gay Bar the World, " makg a mt-see LA’s gay nightlife scene.

When opened 1973, Jewel’s Catch One was the natn’s first black gay and lbian dis. This historic Spanish flamen and tapas bar Sunset Boulevard, while not a gay venue per se, El Cid hosts some fabulo gay-themed shows that are not to be missed.

A low-key, cise-y dive bar Mother Lo claims to be the olst gay bar Wt Hollywood. Opened at 4th and Broadway May 2015, Precct scrib self as a "rock n roll gay bar" Downtown L.

THE BT GAY BARS AND CLUBS LOS ANGEL

Mixed crowd so don’t be fooled by beg a “gay club”, I been h by girls here so much lol, if my Boyiend knew lol. ” And, to set the rerd straight upont: Y, gay nightclubs did exist 1930s Los Angel.

It might be worth notg here that, at the time, the term “gay” was sentially synonymo wh the ntemporary e of “queer. ” Acrdg to LGBTQ historian Lillian Farman, who thored the 2006 book, “Gay L.

: A History of Sexual Outlaws, Power Polics, and Lipstick Lbians, ” “[The word “gay”] was an umbrella term for all those who weren’t ‘straight, ’ effect, ” addg that “ really scribed perhaps everyone that is now scribed unr ‘L’ and ‘B’ and ‘T’ and ‘Q.

THE BEST LOS ANGEL GAY CLUBS & BARSGAY CLUBS & BARS LOS ANGEL

Durg the Prohibn era, Wt Hollywood beme an attractive nightlife spot for the LGBTQ muny, large part, bee of s lotn: First, Sherman existed unrporated unty terrory, which meant the town and s tablishments saw relatively lax oversight by the notorly homophobic Sheriff’s Department; send, s posn between Hollywood and Beverly Hills ma a natural stopover for film dtry personnel, dozens of whom were spected to have been queer, though was ostensibly unuth (and potentially dangero) to say so at the time. Andrew Ahn’s father once told him that there were “no gay people Korea. In a culturally nservative muny, where gog to church and buildg a fay were heavily emphasized, Ahn felt his gay inty kept him “om beg able to participate Korean culture.

” Then, he started equentg GAMeBoi, a weekly Asian Amerin gay party at Wt Hollywood’s Rage Nightclub. He learned to embrace beg both Korean and gay, so much so that he directed “Fire Island, ” a groundbreakg queer Asian Amerin rom- released last year. Beg Asian Amerin and LGBTQ+ n feel lonely, wh stutns such as ethnic church often disavowg non-heterosexual relatnships while tradnal LGBTQ+ spac such as gay bars n be unwelg to people of lor.

“Fdg plac like GAMeBoi, where beg queer and Asian do -exist … It’s not like a 1, 000-year-old Korean cultural rual, but I uld create a new rual, ” said Ahn, a recent Friday, hundreds packed QT Nightlife’s monthly K-Pop Night at Micky’s, a Wt Hollywood gay club a block or so east om the old GAMeBoi posed for selfi a pk Barbie box wh dis balls hangg overhead.

LOS ANGEL GAY MAP

” (Michael Owen Baker / For The Tim) Even historilly gay neighborhoods like Wt Hollywood or San Francis’s Castro district, Asian Amerins have long been ignored or fetishized, seen as feme and weak. In 2019, then-Wt Hollywood Mayor John Duran argued that he did not appropriately touch a member of the Gay Men’s Chos of Los Angel bee “he’s a skny Korean kid wh pimpl on his cheek. ” Asian Amerin advocy groups cricized Duran’s remark, wh API Equaly-LA potg to the long history of discrimatn agast Asian men gay muni such as Wt Hollywood, whose clubs “ed to require three forms of photo intifitn om anyone they perceived as Asian.

” said Crisman, a 36-year-old gay Korean Amerin rearcher and artist. On this night, he had brought some female high school iends who wanted to experience the gay clubbg scene.

Fans wept when Roosterfish, the Wtsi’s olst gay bar, closed 2016. Micky’s WeHo has long been a staple on Wt Hollywood’s strip of gay nightclubs and bars on Santa Moni Boulevard, known for s open-walled two-story buildg where passersby n see the party ragg om the street. The venue is the only Latx gay bar LA that explicly ters to a gay and Mexin dience every night, not jt as a theme once a week.

But ’s the perfect space to grab a workday bnch wh a lleague or for -workg ssns -hosted on Tudays wh Gay Asstrology. The origal Downtown gay bar, Jalis is a dive bar that ters to the Latx and Mexin LGBTQ muny. Though Sweetwater isn’t officially known as a lbian bar, the humble tablishment has long been the go-to spot for queer women the lol gayborhood, which featur nearly half a dozen gay bars that le Broadway Long Beach.

One of Long Beach’s few, if not only, three-level gay bars, Executive Sue boasts a karaoke bar, vio gam, pool tabl for rent, and regular drag shows. Dubbed by KCET as Montebello’s bt Lato gay bar, Chi is the sister to Club Cobra, servg as a groundg se for the queer Latx muny the suburbs of East LA. It’s the perfect place for gay men to meet on the Eastsi.

AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTThe LookClub Scum, a monthly party that embrac punk and drag, is a distillatn of the ge-iendly gay unrground on the Jack LyonsText by Daniel HernanzProduced by Eve Jack Lyons for The New York TimLet’s get one thg straight, so to ’s mastream gay club culture — homogeneo hoe mic, ternatnal circu parti, rabow flags everywhere, which is fe! — and there is unrground gay club culture, which is more like a spir web of alternative scen. ”In Los Angel early 2016, two queer club nizens put a party together at a strip-mall gay bar eply Lato eastern Los Angel and lled Club Scum.

Far om the posher dance floors of the gay enclave of Wt Hollywood, the goal of the anizers was to mix scen that hadn’t often met, even on the wist of webs: drag and punk.

Most of all, I was at the unrground gay club Jack Lyons for The New York Jack Lyons for The New York Jack Lyons for The New York TimIn L. ’s central neighborhoods and s Eastsi, nizens followed the unrground gay lendar om club to club, week to week, where we ma bands of iends and notched strgs of enthiastic bed mat. As a rult, ’s taken me some years to realize that there were actually two alternative gay unrground cultur Los Angel at the time, and that many of had firm footholds were the more mastream-adjacent scen that centered East Hollywood and Silver Lake: leather, bears, rockers, “creative” typ, the people who ngregated at plac like Akbar, MJ’s, the Eagle, Cuffs and Fltle.

Then there was the immigrant-led unrground, domated by workg class gays and lbians, Lat drag queens, trans people. The venu clud the old Le Bar on Glendale Boulevard (now the hipster hnt Cha Cha Lounge), the now-funct Circ Dis Hollywood, the divey New Jalis on Ma Street, and Tempo on Santa Moni Boulevard, a verable club of worship to gay vaqueros and Jack Lyons for The New York Jack Lyons for The New York TimFarther east, there was the ltle known lbian bar Reds Boyle Heights, and Club Chi, a “cholo bar, ” as we lled back then, that tered mostly to Mexin or Mexin-Amerin guys who shunned the tradnal L.