Jacksonville - Guide for Gays, Lesbians and Queers

Riverside, together with the Five Points district, has been the center of queer life in Jacksonville for decades. The city's first Pride picnic was held here, and the Pride parade still starts here. The number of bars is small, though, and several former clubs such as College Station in Murray Hill and the Metro complex have closed.

A dependable place to go is Hardwicks on East Adams Street downtown. The bar makes a point of welcoming the whole community, including gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans and nonbinary guests. It serves cocktails, a solid selection of tequila and whiskey, and hosts its own events. When it opened, it was described as the first new LGBTQ+ bar downtown in about twenty years.

For many locals, JASMYN matters more than any bar. The organization supports LGBTQ+ youth and young adults and grew out of a meeting at the Willowbranch Library that a teenager called by pinning a note to the bulletin board. It is now based in the Brooklyn neighborhood, where it uses several buildings, among them a house that was once home to the Jacksonville Women's Center. Together with other nonprofits it also runs a home for young people without stable housing.

Jax River City Pride, the group behind the parade and festival, organizes events throughout the year and keeps a calendar of LGBTQ+ happenings in the city. If you are interested in local history, Willowbranch Park in Riverside is home to Love Grove, a stand of trees planted in memory of neighborhood residents who died of AIDS, along with a sunflower mural by the creek. It is a quiet place, and a good way to understand how the community here came together.