Queer Guide 2024

Every Pride is exciting. Every Pride has something new. Yes, there are constants: hotties in short shorts. But even that rubric is evolving: hotties bursting from body norms, coveralls hemmed to high heaven. Last year, Pride Northwest—the nonprofit that plans Portland’s Pride Parade and the accompanying waterfront festivities—moved the city’s summertime celebrations of queerness from […]

LGBTQs IN THE NEWS!

[Find the Mercury‘s Queer Guide in print—available in more than 500 spots citywide!—eds.] In 2023 Oregon House Bill 2002 was hailed as transformative, crucial legislation for protecting the rights of women and LGBTQ+ residents. The reproductive health care bill protects doctors from prosecution, ensures a patient’s right to abortion at any age without requiring parental […]

Riot grrrl punk singer Kathleen Hanna is making a documentary about Portland drag royalty and Guinness Book World Record holder Darcelle XV.

[Find the Mercury‘s Queer Guide in print—available in more than 500 spots citywide!—eds.] International exhibition the Venice Biennale is one of the most prestigious places to present contemporary visual art in the world, and artist Jeffrey Gibson currently represents the US with the space in which to place me. Gibson’s work fills the US pavilion […]

[Find the Mercury‘s Queer Guide in print—available in more than 500 spots citywide!—eds.] As Sidney Adjetey laid on an exam table at Harborview Medical Center with his T-shirt hiked up, research clinician Phoebe Bryson-Cahn examined injection sites on either side of his belly button. In April, University of Washington researchers at the UW Positive Research […]

[Find the Mercury‘s Queer Guide in print—available in more than 500 spots citywide!—eds.] Even though it’s currently only open by appointment at its longtime home on North Mississippi, the Q Center’s building, shuttered for two years during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, is full of life.  The LGBTQ2SIA+ community center, which is celebrating its […]

[Find the Mercury‘s Queer Guide in print—available in more than 500 spots citywide!—eds.] The Silverado is obviously and stridently a gay bar. Rainbow tassels line the kitchen, attractive men in snug underwear sling drinks, and posters of shirtless guys adorn the walls. Also, after nine at night male strippers perform in the Silverado’s basement. The […]

[Find the Mercury‘s Queer Guide in print—available in more than 500 spots citywide!—eds.] Happy Pride Summer! It’s a great time to think about how you can put some of your hard-earned dollars toward supporting local LGBTQ-owned businesses, while you’re out and about this summer and all year long. And so? We’ve rounded up some of […]

[Find the Mercury‘s Queer Guide in print—available in more than 500 spots citywide!—eds.] What makes a gay bar? Is it that little Progress Pride flag in the window? If that were the case, nearly every bar in Portland would feel queer-coded. No, what makes a gay bar is not simply the presence of Pride flags […]

[Find the Mercury‘s Queer Guide in print—available in more than 500 spots citywide!—eds.] Despite the campy spandex uniform worn by those truly dedicated to the sport, cycling still has a reputation for having a certain straight guy “bro” quality that can make it intimidating for non-men and queer folks to get involved. But in Portland, […]