Is key west gay
There Goes The Key West Gayborhood?
By Chris Hamilton. Story is cross posted at KONK Life on February 16, 2024. Follow us at Friends of Car-Free Key West & Duval Street/Historic Downtown on Facebook.
On February 5 the Equator Resort – the Male-Only – Clothing Optional hotel at 822 Fleming Street announced that after 27 years in business as the Equator, their last day of operation would be January 8, 2025, saying: “The corporation has not sold, however there are new shareholders that have expanded their view of the corporations future plans.” The “expanded view” means the 34 room hotel with stunning grounds and two gorgeous pools will no longer be for gay men but rather be “welcome to all.” Insiders inform us the new entitle will be “Bishop Key West” and will not be clothing optional. And just like that Key West has lost one of the few remaining “Gay” hotels.
Is our gayborhood disappearing? Is Key West becoming less gay? What does the loss of gay spaces mean for gay businesses and our island LGBTQ+ community? Our downtown business district and our Key West society in general? Do proprietors of gay establishments contain a responsibili
FX Excursions
A historic event took place back in 2015, when Florida’s first queer marriage united local same-sex attracted activists Aaron Huntsman and William Lee Jones. The fact the ceremony took place at Key West’s Monroe County Courthouse says a lot about the destination’s long-time welcoming attitude.
Today more than 250,000 Queer visitors vacation in Key West yearly, according to Key West Business Guild, a nonprofit devoted to promoting the destination to LGBTQ+ travelers. And the southernmost city in the continental United States is more than just a gay vacation hot spot: About 30 percent of Key West’s 25,000 residents identify as part of the community. So it’s no wonder the destination enjoys such a amazing reputation with gay globetrotters from around the world.
Same-sex weddings and honeymoons endure a major focus for the destination’s tourism industry … and with great reason. Key West was Florida’s first city to recognize same-sex domestic partnerships and marriage equality, and the city’s Monroe County was the state’s first county to recognize those same rights for the entire chain of Florida Keys.
Most gay and womxn loving womxn weddings in Key West and the Florida Keys are intim
How the Gays Saved Key West
Long associated with the testosterone-fueled macho marketing of Hemingway, Key West in fact has benefited far more from a very different variety of resourceful energy. Hemingway lived and worked on the island barely 11 years. He was followed by a lavender wave of corporation, ingenuity and industry that has lasted for decades and continues to this day.
The economic history of Key West reads prefer a wild roller coaster ride, careening from boom to bust up until the 1970s. Settled in 1830 to combat piracy, the island evolved into a major wrecking port where salvagers won staggering sums saving foundered ships on the infamous reefs surrounding the archipelago. Until, that is, the U.S. signed the international laws of admiralty ending the “finders-keepers” practice of the salvagers. A robust try to produce sponges ended with the onslaught of a toxic “red tide.” Years of a roaring trade in cigar making came to a screeching halt when the metropolis fathers of Tampa lured away all of the cigar factories on the island with the pledge of no taxes and infrastructure incentives. World War I brought frenzied attention—and lots of funds–from the U.S. Department o
An island appendage off land-bound Miami, Key West might be the southernmost show of the continental US, but it’s really a nation apart — a Conch Republic where rainbow flags fly, queer businesses thrive, and no one bats an eye as LGBTQ couples walk hand in hand.
“One Human Family,” Key West’s motto, says it all. Colorful, eccentric, and bohemian — locals don’t just tolerate difference, they celebrate it. Unite a ragtag mix of Conchs (the nickname for locals) by staking your claim to a stretch of sugar-sand beach, flying whatever flag suits you best.
Here are five reasons why over 250,000 LGBTQ travelers visit this 8-square-mile paradise in the Florida Keys annually.
1. Queer society is a part of the island’s cultural fabric.
Photo: Rob O’Neal/Florida Keys News Bureau/HO
In the mid-20th century, Key West’s come-as-you-are attitude became an LGBTQ magnet, attracting a who’s who of queer American artists. Theater legends Jerry Herman, Terrence McNally, and Leonard Bernstein all found inspiration in the salty sea breezes. Lesbian writer Elizabeth Bishop, a US Poet Laureate, penned verses on the island from 19
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