Gay Guide to Orlando
Orlando's LGBTQ+ story is bound up with the night of 12 June 2016, when a gunman killed 49 people at Pulse, then the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. The club building came down in March 2026 to make way for a permanent memorial on the site, due to be finished in fall 2027. The community's roots run much deeper than that night: the LGBT+ Center Orlando on Mills Avenue has served the city since 1978.
There is no single gay strip; the scene is spread across neighbourhoods east and north of downtown. In the Milk District, Southern Nights is the big multi-room club for drag and dancing, with District Dive alongside for darts and pool. Savoy on North Orange Avenue in Ivanhoe Village has drag shows, DJs and a weekend drag brunch, and Anthem, right on Orange Avenue downtown near Lake Eola, is a queer-owned club open seven nights a week.
Out in College Park, Edgewater Drive has two easygoing neighbourhood bars, Hank's and BarCodes, with a local crowd. Club Orlando, the men's bathhouse just south of downtown, has a gym, steam room and an outdoor pool.
Some institutions have moved on. Parliament House, the resort on Orange Blossom Trail that anchored gay Orlando for decades, closed in 2020, and its owners plan a new venue downtown. Hamburger Mary's left Church Street in 2024 and reopened in 2026 at Old Town in Kissimmee, near the theme parks.
Come Out With Pride fills Lake Eola Park each October, with the parade finishing at the park and fireworks after dark. In early June, GayDays brings thousands to Walt Disney World, a tradition since 1991 that peaks with Red Shirt Day at Magic Kingdom.