Gay Paris

The Parisian attitude toward sexual preferences is relaxed and pragmatic, and it is a genuinely easy city to be gay in as a visitor. Here is a city where you can walk hand-in-hand and feel truly at home. The annual Marche des Fiertes, Paris Pride, takes over the city each June and has only grown. Paris's official tourist office site keeps listings of gay-friendly hotels and venues, and is the one source on this page worth trusting for anything time-sensitive. Paris's Marais district may be considered the epicenter of Paris's gay community - rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie and the streets around it are still the heart of it - but you'll find that this city has plenty to offer gay visitors, especially when it comes to nightlife in various arrondissements, so don't limit yourself to just one neighborhood. Some of Paris's best night spots are gay-oriented, and Pigalle and the 11th both have their own scenes. A note on venues This page used to list particular clubs, with addresses and door times. It no longer does, and that is deliberate. Paris nightlife turns over fast: Le Queen, for years the name everyone knew, closed in 2015, and most of the other rooms named here in the 2000s have since shut or changed hands. A club listing written from an archive is worse than none, because it sends you across the city to a shuttered door. For what is actually open this week, check the tourist office listings above, or one of the current Paris nightlife guides. The Marais bars are the reliable starting point in any case - they are concentrated enough that you can walk between them and follow whatever is busy.