Gay Guide to Las Vegas
Nevada voters wrote a ban on same-sex marriage into their state constitution in 2000 and confirmed it in 2002. In 2020 the same electorate voted 62 to 38 to strip it out and replace it with a clause requiring the state to recognize and license marriages regardless of gender. Nevada became the first state in the country to put marriage equality into its constitution by popular vote, and the first of the thirty states with a ban on the books to repeal its own at the ballot box.
The scene is not on the Strip and never has been. The Fruit Loop, a small cluster off Paradise Road east of the airport, is as close as the city gets to a district: Piranha is the big room, with Flex and QUADZ within a short walk and Entourage covering the bathhouse end.
The rest is scattered across a very spread-out city. Badlands Saloon, the Fun Hog Ranch, The Garage, the Backdoor Lounge and The Phoenix each hold a different crowd. Gipsy has been running in one form or another for decades, with Hamburger Mary's filling out the rest.
Las Vegas Pride holds its parade after dark, which is a concession to the desert rather than a stylistic choice, and lands in the autumn for the same reason.
The Strip is corporate and welcoming in the way a large business is welcoming; the actual scene is a ten-minute ride east of it. The compensation is that this is a city with no closing time, so an evening can start whenever you like and frequently does.