#When is the gay pride parade in key west free#
The Key West Tennessee Williams Exhibit, located inside the Key West Business Guild and home to many rare articles, photographs, first editions and other memorabilia, seeks to educate visitors on the the literary legend’s life and career, with free self-guided tours and a few curator-led talks available throughout the week.
Indeed, it is Williams who is often credited for establishing Key West as an official gay vacationland, thanks to his unabashedly open celebration of his sexuality.
When celebrated American playwright Tennessee Williams arrived in Key West in the late 1940s with his longtime partner, Frank Merlo, he quickly established himself as what Out Traveler magazine would later dub “The Gay Grandfather of Florida’s Southern Isle,” throwing flamboyant soirees and attracting a cadre of likeminded friends and fans. And in the charged and ever-changing political climate of America’s LGBT-rights movement, celebrating Pride Week in the city that helped define gay pride serves as a reminder of just how important it is to celebrate such things, lest we forget how hard they were fought for, and how vital it is we continue to fight to ensure their future survival. Which is why, from June 5-9, Key West will host its annual Pride Week, a celebration of the past and present gay culture of Key West. Mayor Teri Johnston and a friend enjoy a past parade. Or, if you’re an XY, enjoy a leisurely half-clothed brunch at the male-only Island House, after which you can ditch the rest of your garb and lounge poolside in the buff.įor a place with literal rainbow-colored streets (yes, permanent rainbow crosswalks usher pedestrians across Duval Street where it intersects Olivia Street) it’s clear that, while what was once referred to as “Gay Mecca” of yesteryear may have changed a bit, over the course of the thirteen years since the Times dared to question the island’s sexual proclivities, Key West has its answer: Key West is still gayer than a tea dance at La Te Da, and we’re dedicated to keeping it that way. Or ask one out of every three locals that you pass in the grocery store (you can spot them if you look for the dreaded permanent flip flop tan), since one third of the island’s permanent residents are estimated to identify as homosexual. Is Key West going straight? Pop your head into the Bourbon Street Pub, one of Key West’s most famed gay bars, and over the view of the bouncing buttocks of Adonis-like dancers strutting up and down the bar, you might think otherwise. Key West’s section of the iconic rainbow flag is a Key West Pride fixture. Louis, Orlando, New Orleans and even - the horror! - Jersey City. It was the end, The Times posited, of Key West as the Gay Mecca the Southern bookend to Massachusetts’s Provincetown was being replaced by St. Drag shows were replaced with Margaritavilles, all-male guesthouses were converted to condos and the streets that had for so many years been rumored to be paved with not gold, but rainbows, saw a new surge of foot traffic from frat bros on Spring Break escapades with their nubile sorority girlfriends. The island’s longtime visitors and residents lamented the gradual loss of historically gay hangouts. And according to a New York Times article published in 2005, an increase in the number of global gay vacation spots coupled with the island’s meteoric real estate prices was to blame for Key West’s increasingly heterogeneous crowd - with a heavy emphasis on the hetero. In 2012, a devastating issue of The Advocate dropped Key West from the magazine’s list of America’s Top 25 Gayest Cities. Accordingly, we’ve updated our previous coverage of Key West’s gayest week to include a few events new to this year’s celebration.
From fetish parties to universally inclusive church services, this year’s Pride has been carefully curated to offer participants both a respite from the outside world and a reminder that we’re not going anywhere - while things may look dark on the other side of US 1, down here we’re still parading down a rainbow crosswalk-covered street. This year, it seems our little island is right on schedule to deliver the wildest, fiercest, buffest Pride Week yet.
#When is the gay pride parade in key west full#
But every June, Key West fluffs its feathers even more than usual for Pride Week, when we reach peak peacock status and bare it all (and we mean all) in our full technicolor majesty. From the pastel-hued conch houses lining the narrow one-way streets to the neon green iguanas perched in the banyan trees to the drag darlings glittering outside Aqua and 801 Bourbon every night of the week, the island is a shining prism year-round. Nyou visit, Key West is a perennial explosion of color.