Gay Guide to Glasgow
Scotland repealed Section 28, known here as Section 2A, in 2000, three years ahead of England and Wales, and it took a real fight. Brian Souter, the Stagecoach billionaire, spent a million pounds of his own money running a private postal referendum across the country to keep it. Around four million ballots went out, fewer than a third came back, and 86.8 percent of those returned backed keeping the clause. The Parliament repealed it regardless, which says something about the campaign and rather more about the institution.
Merchant City, an eighteenth-century trading quarter regenerated into the city's bar district, holds the scene. Delmonicas has been there since 1991 and is where everyone starts, with the Polo Lounge, AXM, Katie's, the Riding Room, Speakeasy, The Underground, The Gallery and the Corset Club within a few streets of each other.
Out in the Southside, Category Is Books is a small queer bookshop that works as a community space as much as a shop, and is worth the trip out. The Pipeworks covers the sauna end, and LGBT Youth Scotland and LGBT Health & Wellbeing run the support side.
Glasgow Pride takes a summer weekend, and the Scottish Queer International Film Festival programs in the autumn.
Glasgow is warmer in temperament than Edinburgh and the scene is considerably bigger, which surprises people who assume the capital leads. It is also compact: the Merchant City can be walked end to end in ten minutes, and nobody here will let you drink alone for long.