How to Connect With the Gay and Lesbian Community in Sante Fe

Only San Francisco leads Santa Fe in numbers of households headed up by same-sex partners. But it seems like that’s where they stay--at home. While Santa Fe doesn’t have a whole lot of gay-specific nightlife, it’s still a great place for GLBT people to live or visit.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

1. Know that Out Traveler website gives Santa Fe excellent marks for being gay friendly, but only a fair grade for gay nightlife. Prepare to meet people in places other than local watering holes.
2. Get involved in Equality New Mexico or Santa Fe Human Rights, an activist organization that holds an annual March “Gayla.”
3. Understand that your best bet for making GLBT contacts may be local chapters of national organizations like Parents, Friends and Family of Lesbians And Gays (PFLAG) and Children Of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere (COLAGE).
4. Check out Rainbow Vision gay and lesbian retirement community--one of the only such facilities in the country. You don’t have to be retirement age to live there or get to know people who do.
5. Support Santa Fe’s handful of gay and lesbian bars, including Paramount, Swig, Cowgirl and Doc Martin’s.
6. Put Santa Fe’s gay pride celebration on your calendar. It’s usually held in late June.

Tips & Warnings

• Don’t give up! Gays do flock to Santa Fe; they just kind of blend in.
• Enjoy the bounty of culture that Santa Fe has to offer all its residents and visitors.

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