Gay Guide to Antwerp
Belgium opened marriage to same-sex couples on 1 June 2003, the second country in the world to do it. Five days later two women married each other in Kapellen, just north of Antwerp: the first marriage between women in the country. Antwerp has carried an unremarkable, unbothered gay presence ever since, and in a city this size that owes something to the fashion schools. The Antwerp Six came out of the Royal Academy and broke through internationally in the 1980s, and the Academy still draws people from all over Europe who were never going to fit in where they came from.
Het Roze Huis opened on the Draakplaats in Zurenborg in 2000 and remains the community anchor, with Café den Draak attached to it and a national reputation for the work it does rather than just its bar.
The nightlife splits in two. Around Sint-Jansvliet and the lanes between Central Station and the old center sit Café DeLux, Café de Love, Twilight and the Hessenhuis, all leaning toward intimate cafe-bars rather than large rooms. The Schipperskwartier, the once-notorious dock quarter, holds the harder end: Red & Blue, The Boots, Random and the Mister B shop.
Antwerp Pride takes the first weekend of August and builds to a Saturday parade through the historic core. The Antwerp Queer Arts Festival runs its own program, and Darklands, the fetish festival, pulls an international crowd each winter.
Everything here is walkable, the crowd is a mix of locals plus weekenders in from Brussels and the Netherlands, and the whole scene is smaller and better than it has any commercial reason to be.