The UNLV-adjacent “Fruit Loop,” the original gay hub, still draws boys to Piranha, the least pretentious of the gay clubs in Las Vegas, and girls to FreeZone, the city’s honorary lesbian club. And the latter reflects the clustered nature of gay bars in Las Vegas. The former is symptomatic of the city’s transitory population and its LGBT scene’s relative youth the Las Vegas Pride parade, for instance, is barely two decades old. Which, of course, only fuels complaints about disconnection and a lack of a true gayborhood. Like the housing developments and strip malls that cover the Vegas map like glitter on a go-go boy, the local gay and lesbian community is impressively spread throughout the valley, all but screaming: we’re here, we’re queer, we’re everywhere. For a young scene in a mid-sized city, gay Las Vegas boasts some serious sprawl.
