Gay Guide to Edinburgh
Scotland decriminalised sex between men in 1980, thirteen years after England and Wales, and the change only took effect in February 1981. The country has moved quickly since: the Scottish Parliament passed equal marriage in 2014, and the first same-sex weddings took place on the last day of that year.
Edinburgh's scene centres on the Pink Triangle, the streets at the top of Leith Walk around Broughton Street and Picardy Place, on the eastern edge of the New Town. CC Blooms, open since 1994 beside the Playhouse on Greenside Place, is the city's oldest LGBTQ+ bar and club, with food upstairs, a basement dance floor seven nights a week and drag most weekends. Planet on Baxter's Place and The Street on Picardy Place are a couple of minutes' walk away, and Steamworks sauna is tucked into Broughton Market.
The neighbourhood has deep roots. Scotland's first lesbian and gay bookshop, Lavender Menace, opened on Forth Street in August 1982, and its name lives on as a queer books archive and pop-up shop on London Road. On 17 June 1995 Scotland's first Pride march set off from Broughton Street, with organisers expecting 500 people and around 3,000 turning up.
Beyond the Pink Triangle, Paradise Palms on Lothian Street near the university is a queer-popular bar with a vegetarian kitchen and live music, and Lighthouse on West Nicolson Street is an independent bookshop with a strong LGBTQ+ section. The Regent in Abbeyhill, at the foot of Calton Hill, is a relaxed, inclusive real ale pub.
Pride Edinburgh marches each June from the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood up the Royal Mile to Bristo Square, where a stage of drag, DJs and live music waits at the finish. In August the Fringe fills the city with queer cabaret, comedy and theatre.