Gay Guide to Austin
Texas Penal Code 21.06 has criminalized what it calls deviate sexual intercourse with an individual of the same sex since 1973. The Supreme Court struck it down in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003. It is still printed in the Texas Penal Code today, because striking a law down does not delete it and only the Legislature can, and the Legislature has never voted to. Repeal bills have been filed again and again and have never passed. That Legislature sits in Austin, a short walk from the bars below, which is a reasonable summary of this city's relationship with its state.
The Warehouse District holds the compact core, almost all of it on Fourth Street. Oilcan Harry's is the long-running anchor, with Rain next door and Highland Lounge a block over on Colorado. It is a genuine walking district in a city that mostly is not one.
Red River and the east side carry the other half, and it is the more interesting one. Cheer Up Charlies sits in the middle of the Red River music strip and functions as much as a live venue as a queer bar, which is very Austin. Barbarella is next to it, the Iron Bear covers bears on Sixth Street, and the Austin Eagle sits further out where the rent is lower.
Hippie Hollow on Lake Travis is the outlier worth the drive: the only legally clothing-optional public park in Texas, and a gay gathering place for decades before that status was formalized.
Austin Pride takes August, when the heat makes the whole thing an act of endurance. The Austin International Drag Festival and aGLIFF, the queer film festival that has run since the 1980s, fill out a calendar that is busier than the city's size suggests.