by Ed Walsh, SF Gay Travel Examiner

If you are tired of the Bay Area cold and are considering a trip to Florida, it doesn’t get any gayer than Fort Lauderdale.  Just 30 minutes north of Miami, the Greater Fort Lauderdale area boasts more gay clubs and gay resorts than Miami and Key West combined.

And airfares are dirt cheap now.  Just after Christmas, I found a roundtrip fare from SFO to Fort Lauderdale for as little as $215!  Check out my favorite flight search engine, sidestep.com, for the very lowest fare from your closest Bay Area airport.

The City of Fort Lauderdale’s next-door neighbor is Wilton Manors, one of the gayest cities in the country.  According to City-Data.com, the small city of just 13,000 has the highest percentage of gay male couples of any US city.   Estimates put its gay population at 40-50%.   While almost all the gay resorts are in Fort Lauderdale, most of the gay nightclubs are in Wilton Manors.  Unlike Key West and Miami Beach, where you are better off without a car, it’s a good idea to rent a car in Fort Lauderdale if you want to explore the city’s nightclubs and dining scene.   But if you are content to stay at the beach, you can get along without wheels.

Accommodations

If you want to be in the heart of Fort Lauderdale, close to all the bars, clubs, gay restaurants and the most popular gay area Wilton Drive, you should stay at the Cabanas Gay Guesthouse and Spa. The Cabanas is the only gay guesthouse and spa in Wilton Manors and is just a short walk from exciting Wilton Drive.  This gated private resort is also the only gay waterfront resort in Ft. Lauderdale, and once inside you’ll know why The Cabanas Guest house is a perfect gay bed and breakfast. The tropical settings of palm trees, lush foliage, and serenity are what make our accommodations unique.  Once you see the beautiful waterfront accommodations, you’ll know why The Cabanas Guesthouse was voted Best Gay Guesthouse Accommodations by the “Peoples Choice Awards.”

Nightlife

The club scene is centered in Wilton Manors with Georgie’s Alibi and the Boom nightclub which are part of a strip mall that includes a wide variety of gay-focused clothing stores and shops. One of the newest gay clubs in town, Scandals,  is western-themed and already attracts a big following.   Sidelines Sports  Bar features flat screen televisions, pool and darts. The Cloud Nine Lounge  is a lesbian club in Davie, which is just southwest of Fort Lauderdale.

The Sights

Fort Lauderdale (pop. 186,000) is a city of canals where the super-rich can ride their million-dollar yachts up to their multimillion dollar homes.  The famous Jungle Queen Riverboat  is good way to get an up-close look at how the other half lives in style along the canals.

The huge Hugh Taylor Birch State Park, just across the street from Fort Lauderdale beach, affords great views of some of the canals   The park offers some great cycling, picnicking and you can even take a guided Segway tour of the park, offered by the MCruz Rentals concession in the park.  Or if you want to go supergreen, they will also rent you a bike.

Eating Out

The super-rich of Fort Lauderdale support some of the finest restaurants you will find anywhere in Florida.     The Trina restaurant is the signature restaurant for the Atlantic Resort and Spa.  It features Mediterranean dishes.   You can dine outside overlooking Fort Lauderdale beach.

Other gay favorites include the gay-owned and operated Hi-Life Café with fine dining by candlelight, and the newly opened Lips which is beautifully decorated to resemble a jewel case.  The dinner here includes a drag show here.

If you need assistance with your travel arrangements, contact The Cabanas Guesthouse and Spa

A Look at Florida’s Gay Communities
by Picincu Andra

Gay community or LGBT community defines the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender subculture and the additional identifiable “sub-communities”, such as the leather community, the Bear community, the chubby community, the lesbian community, the bisexual community, the transgender community, the drag community, the rave community, and many others. The sexual minority cultures represent a sub-demographic of the “gay community” at large, as the concept includes several conceptual and empirical problems, such as heterosexism, homophobia, sex-negativity, and conformist pressures. Most of the members are organized in gay villages, known and sometimes referred to as “gay communities”, whose goal is to promote pride, diversity, individuality, and sexuality.

The Gay and Lesbian Community Center of South Florida recently decided to make a new movement, at 2040 North Dixie Hwy, to a multimillion-dollar, six-acre campus with a waterfront view and Wilton Manors address, in order to provide the proper neccessities and rights of an increasingly assertive and growing gay community.It has been purchased on June 27 for $4.75 million, without including the future demands of a vibrant community center.

”Sexual orientation and gender identity are relevant issues for every human on this planet,” said Paul Hyman, executive director of the GLCC. “We want this new campus to be a resource of not only the [gay] community, but an environment of safety and fairness for all people.”

The’campus’ of the gay community will include several activities and services, such as a cybercafe, HIV counseling center, methamphetamine treatment center, theater and conference center and a catering kitchen conceived to have the capacity of serving up to 200 people. In addition, there will be a real organization of memorial services and weddings, along the Middle River riverfront, a church – Church of the Holy SpiritSong.All the religious groups will be accepted, without making any difference between them.

”In addition to social needs and healthcare needs, we want to address spirituality,” Hyman said.

”This is a blessing,” declared the church’s Rev. Leslie Tipton.

It will take up to 9 months for the members of the community to develop the features and renovations that are neccessary, considering a 35,000 square feet of office spaces, and population: there are at least 51,000 same-sex households in the state and third of them are in South Florida.The GLCC has grown fastr than it was expected, expanding far beyond its first home in the early 1990′s – a Victoria Park home’s garage.

‘It’s hard to figure out if people are just here for five years to `rest and recharge’ before moving to Chicago or New York,’said Michael Emanuel Rajner, a gay activist.

The gay community has a budget of $900,000, that is expected to grow, reaching $1 million in 2009.

”We need this new center to respond more effectively to the need and to provide our groups more space that’s needed,” Rajner said.

The Cabanas Gay Guesthouse and Spa welcomes you to visit Gay Fort Lauderdale!

by Kilian Melloy
EDGE Contributor

Less than two weeks after submitting a letter of intent to bid on selection as host city for Gay Games IX, Miami Beach, Fla. reversed a city law banning the flying of the rainbow flag–and raised a multicolored banner high over City Hall.

The flag raising drew reportage from local CBS affiliate Channel 4, which posted a story online Nov. 11.

The so-called gay pride flag was created by Gilbert Baker, a San Francisco artist, whose early version of the flag included two additional stripes, in comparison to the most common such flag of today.

Baker’s flag included the six stripes seen on most contemporary flags, along with a hot pink stripe and an indigo stripe, according to a Wikipedia article.

Baker’s flag was hoisted in the June 25, 1978 Gay Freedom Day Parade in San Francisco, the Wikipedia article said, going on to note that demand for the flag skyrocketed in the aftermath of the murder of openly gay San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk, whose career–and whose struggle against a Proposition 8-like anti-gay ballot initiative–is the focus of a new biopic starring Sean Penn.

The CBS-4 story quoted Miami Beach mayor Matti Herrera Bower, who said of the newly-hoisted pride flag, “I think that this is just another step to making a whole city, a city that really welcomes gays and lesbians.”

The city commission struck down a long-standing ordinance forbidding the flying of the rainbow flag in Miami Beach–a curious anachronism for a city known as a favorite gay tourism spot.

The CBS-4 story quoted Miami Beach resident Luis Randazzo, who said, “It’s a historic day for us.

“The gay flag is a representation of diversity,” continued Randazzo. “It represents equality. It represents the cultural identity of the community.”

As another resident put it: “Miami Beach has a little bit of everything.

“I think that’s what makes Miami Beach what it is–so I’m okay with it.”

The presence of the flag might also help make Miami Beach the next host city for the Gay Games. Miami was one of four American cities to submit letters to the Federation of Gay Games expressing the intention of bidding to become the site for the next Gay Games in 2014.

Boston, Cleveland, and Washington, D.C. also submitted letters notifying the FGG that those cities, too, intend to throw their hats into the ring for the honor–and the profit–of hosting the games, according to a release from the FGG.

Site inspectors from the FGG will travel to each of the four cities next summer to determine which one will be chosen to host the 2014 Games.

Every four years, more than eleven thousand athletes and other participants join together for the world’s largest GLBT sporting and cultural event, according to the FGG news release.

The 2010 Games are already scheduled to take place in Cologne, Germany.

Past host cities have included San Francisco (twice: 1982 and again in 1986), Vancouver (1990), New York (1994), Amsterdam (1998), Sydney (2002), and Chicago (2006).

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