Gay Guide to Phoenix
Phoenix passed its own non-discrimination ordinance on 26 February 2013. Exactly one year later, on 26 February 2014, Governor Jan Brewer vetoed SB 1062, the bill that would have let businesses refuse service to gay customers on religious grounds, after Apple, Intel, Marriott, two major airlines and Major League Baseball lined up against it and a crowd gathered outside the Capitol to wait for her decision. Arizona had repealed its sodomy law only in 2001, and a 1991 statute forbidding HIV instruction that promoted what it called a homosexual lifestyle survived until 2019. The city has been consistently ahead of the state, and both dates are in living memory.
Central Phoenix holds nearly everything, concentrated on Seventh Avenue and around the Melrose District with its neon sign arching over the street. Charlie's is the long-running country and western room, with Kobalt, Stacy's at Melrose, Cruisin' 7th, The Rock, Bar 1, Anvil and Pat O's Bunkhouse within a short drive of each other, and Karamba running Latin nights.
Boycott Bar is a lesbian bar, which is worth stating plainly given how few survive anywhere, and the Nu Towne Saloon sits further out for people who want the older, quieter version.
Phoenix Pride runs in October rather than summer for the obvious reason, and Trans Queer Pueblo does organizing work with LGBTQ+ migrants and people of color that has few equivalents in the region. Identity handles hormones and healthcare.
The heat sets the calendar here as completely as winter does in Minneapolis. From November to April the city is superb and the patios are full; in July nobody is outside, prices collapse, and everything happens indoors after dark.