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 June to July. The years before that saw even greater disruptions as queer communities measured pandemic safety, celebrated remotely, and / or resisted a renewed tide of haters set on slashing our rights.
In this guide’s local history of queer nightlife, Silverado’s bar manager Trevor Wion notes that “the younger generation… have so many places they can go.” Plenty of bars in Portland plan queer nights, drag brunches, and pride celebrations. Rainbow signs in windows are legion.
Perhaps related to that, this Pride has a bajillion parties—many more than we’ve seen in recent years. The further we get from mandated lockdowns, the more community gatherings are coming back. Folks are finding each other and working together.
We also find ourselves in the second year of Portland’s new two-month Pride model, where we start celebrating in June and finally (FINALLY) promenade come July. That does leave more room for parties, giving us a feeling of an Endless Queer Summer—the theme of this year’s guide.
If you are holding this guide in your adorable, angelic hands, that’s also something new. This is the Mercury’s first Queer Guide in print since 2019. Every year, we were blown away by the support local businesses showed for our web collections. This year they made this paper a 60-pager. (Pick one up NEAR YOU at so many locations citywide!)
Inside, you’ll find stories about queer bike ride organizers, Portland queer nightlife—past and present—a new family-friendly queer lounge opening this summer, a wine bar the gays adopted, and there are pages and pages of Pride parties to peruse.
Let the Endless Queer Summer begin!
Portland Mercury Arts & Culture Editor
Suzette Smith
