Gay Guide to Tampa
In 2019 Tampa elected Jane Castor, its former police chief, as the city's first openly gay mayor. Its gay life is concentrated in Ybor City, the historic cigar-making district just east of downtown, where the blocks around East 7th Avenue and 15th Street are known as GaYbor.
Bradley's on 7th is the constant there, a two-room bar with drag most nights and go-go dancers at weekends that has outlasted every wave of closures on the street. In July 2025 Southern Nights left 7th Avenue after a decade and reopened around the corner on North 15th Street as Disco Pony, the big dance club, with Drag Race alumni on the bill and midweek drag competitions. Tampa Men's Club, the long-running bathhouse, is out on West Crest Avenue.
Across the bay, St. Petersburg has a scene of its own along Central Avenue in the Grand Central District. Cocktail St Pete is the big drag and dance bar, Lucky Star Lounge is a small neighbourhood bar tucked behind a liquor store, and The Garage on Central does karaoke and pool. Enigma, further east in the Edge District, is the late-night dance club.
St. Pete Pride at the end of June is Florida's biggest, drawing around 300,000 people for a weekend of street festivals and a Saturday evening parade along the downtown waterfront. Tampa Pride, which paraded down 7th Avenue each spring, took 2026 off after losing funding, and a new group, Pride of Tampa, filled the gap with a March festival at the Cuban Club in Ybor.