It took place in 1937 at La Paloma, a nightclub in what is now Miami-Dade County. The city’s most exciting queer history predates all these landmark moments by decades. In 2015, Miami-Dade County became the first place in Florida to issue a same-sex marriage license. The city’s first sanctioned Pride parade happened in 2009. Gender identity discrimination finally followed in 2014. Miami banned discrimination based on sexual identity in 1998. In the late 1990s, things began looking up. Sadly, the coming AIDS epidemic would decimate their numbers along with the rest of Miami’s gay community. In 1980, The Mariel boatlift brought thousands of LGBTQ+ Cubans seeking asylum to the shores of Miami. She swayed public opinion to vote against LGBTQ+ anti-discrimination laws. Five years after the city’s first LGBTQ+ Pride-related activities in 1972, local anti-gay activist Anita Bryant’s national “Save Our Children” campaign smeared homosexuals as a danger to children. Queer communities in the 1950s and 1960s found solace at bars and on beaches, but were subject to frequent police raids and arrests. The fight for LGBTQ+ equality in Miami has often mirrored the wild waves of hurricane season.
