Los Angeles does not have a gay scene so much as several, spread across a city too vast and too restless to consolidate itself into anything as tidy as a quarter. West Hollywood remains the historic and commercial centre, a walkable anomaly in an otherwise car-dependent metropolis, but the reality of queer LA stretches from Silver Lake's leftfield bars to the beach communities of Long Beach and beyond. LA Pride in June is one of the oldest in the world, and the city's annual Halloween celebrations in WeHo have a scale and theatricality that reflects LA's particular genius for turning identity into spectacle.
Gay Places is building a better guide to gay life around the world, bringing together venues, events, and local context to make it easier to find, understand, and step into.
