Miami has been acknowledged as one of The Travel Channel’s Top 10 Foremost Gay Destinations (2019). Today the destination hosts more than one million Gay visitors a year, but the connection people in the LGBTQ+ community notice to Miami is nothing new. As Miami continues to grow and alter, Miami’s love for the queer people has remained constant.
The “Golden Age” of Gay Miami
Miami is well-known for its high-energy nightlife scene, with the appearance of gay clubs going back to the 1930s. But it wasn’t until this “golden age,” that more and more gay bars began cropping up across the capital, and the first organized Gay Celebration week was noted on Lincoln Highway in 1972.
This “golden age” was an influential decade for the LGBTQ+ people. The Christ Metropolitan Community Church was founded in 1970 as a congregation for queer Christians. In 1972, hundreds from the lgbtq+ community joined thousands of protestors in Miami at the Democratic National Convention to hear the first public speech about the rights of gays and lesbians. In 1977, Miami became one of almost 40 cities in the country to overtake nondiscrimination ordinances against the LGBTQ+ community.
Miami’s “Ve
New Exhibit Chronicles The History Of Miami's LGBTQ Community
In recognition of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, a new exhibition chronicles the history of Miami-Dade County’s LGBTQ community over the past 120 years.
Through photos of joy, resistance and defiance, "Queer Miami: A History of the LGBTQ Communities," explores Miami's queer past and sexual diversity. It was curated by Dr. Julio Capó Jr., who was born and raised in Miami and is the author of “Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami before 1940.” Capó is an associate professor of history at University of Massachusetts Amherst and has returned to Miami for the exhibit’s preview party on March 15. The exhibit opens March 16 at History Miami and will be on show until Sept. 1.
WLRN: The LGBTQ community has faced a lot of discrimination, but looking at Miami and these photos on display there are joyous moments and triumphant moments. What is the story you're trying to tell?
Capó: Despite the amount of discrimination, hatred and violence that the LGBTQ community has faced in the span of over 120 years, it's a story about resilience. This is a story about resistance. In the meet of all
Queer Miami: A History of LGBTQ Communities
Curated by WPHL deputy director Julio Capó, Jr. (author of the award-winning book Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami before 1940), Queer Miami: A History of LGBTQ Communities was the featured exhibition at HistoryMiami Museum from March 26, 2019 to September 1, 2019. The 5,000-square-foot exhibition chronicled Miami’s queer past from the 1890s to the display , reflecting on multiple forms of gender and sexual expressions through Greater Miami’s history. In locating Miami’s status as a metropolis of the Americas, it was especially attentive to questions of segregation, racial violence, incarceration, public health, and immigration.
Moments of defiance, resistance, and triumph are emphasized, highlighting stories of community and identity formation, coalition building, and civil rights. The exhibition also encouraged museum visitors to share their personal stories in an effort to acknowledge the diversity of the LGBTQ communities over time.
Beyond Fairyland: Writing and Curating Queer Miami
Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami Before 1940
SOLOMON: How did you come to write Welcome to Fairyland? What personal pathways led you to this project? Are there other histories or historians that motivated and inspired you?
Capó: First, let me appreciate you for the opportunity to distribute my work and thoughts with you and your readers. I am most grateful. Welcome to Fairyland developed organically and with quite a bit of urgency as I continued to ponder historically about questions at the intersection of sexual, racial, class, and gender injustice that accept many different forms today. I began revising my dissertation, which was a history of LGBTQ Miami in the post-World War II era that paid particular attention to immigrant populations and experiences. I grew frustrated by assumptions I had to make about what pre-1940 Miami looked like. For starters, there were relatively few queer society studies of the early twentieth century, especially for locations in the US South. Miami's history differed greatly from cities we realize much more about, such as Fresh York, San Francisco, and Chicago. Never taken too seriously by most
Miami school board votes against recognizing LGBTQ History Month
The Miami-Dade County School board voted against recognizing October as LGBTQ history month in a 1-8 vote, as the effects of the Parental Rights in Education law continue to trickle down.
H-11, a resolution for Miami-Dade schools to formally recognize LGBTQ history month, stated that the month "has been established to remind all cultures within our wider group of the important roles that LGBTQ people acquire taken in shaping the social, historical, legal, and political worlds we stay in today." It was voted down on Wednesday.
This year, it included providing resources for 12th grade teachers to teach about major Supreme Court cases on same-sex marriage and anti-discrimination protections such as Obergefell v. Hodges and Bostock v. Clayton County.
In 2021, Miami school board members voted overwhelmingly to recognize the month – 7-1. Just one year later, the board took a different route. Board members expressed confusion over whether the initiative would break the classroom restrictions set by the Parental Rights in Education law.
The law, dubbed "Don't Express Gay" by LGBTQ activists
