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Queer & Lesbian Paris: Things To Do, Bars, Clubs + Events

Brush up on your high school-level French and grab a beret because it’s time to get your lesbian Emily in Paris vibe going. And—lucky you—we’ve got the ultimate queer & lesbian Paris guide for you. 

The French capital city is rife with LGBTQ+ history that has contributed to its current queer-friendly reputation, making it a draw for queer travelers. And much like any other culturally-rich city, there are many different Parisian neighborhoods for various activities, like concerts, cabaret shows, and activism. 

Trocadero Paris, Eiffel Tower lesbian couple

Bars and clubs are a-plenty, and while there is a lively gay scene for queer women, there are some limitations. That shouldn’t hold you back, though, because we’ve got you covered with things to do, places to go to, and events to attend, all while keeping the queer and lesbian travel experience in mind.

Let’s explore what makes Paris, Paris, and what makes it – in the larger context of France’s history – unique for LGBTQ+ folks. And, of course, read on to learn how to make your next night out in the city of lights one to remember. 

Who knows, visit one of these places, and perhaps you’ll find the Sofia to your Camille, à la Emily in Paris

On y va! 

Gay Area Paris

If you ever join a Marche des Fiértes in Paris on the last weekend of LGBT Pride Month in June, you’ll probably end up with the rest of the crowd at the historical gayborhood of le Marais.

Paris has been lauded as the LGBTQ+ capital for centuries because of the history we talked about. Its notoriety is almost at the same level as New York City, Amsterdam, and London, and for a good reason.

We mentioned queer artists who chose Paris as their temporary or permanent home over the centuries. That history can be found in many parts of the city, but not more noticeable than in the current Paris gayborhood of le Marais.

Le Marais Queer Lesbian Paris

Le Marais

Walking around the Marais, you’ll notice that many buildings are leaning, yes – leaning! That’s unsurprising when you learn that marais is French for “swamp,” which can explain the old historic leaning buildings built on marshy land.

Don’t let that stop you from going, though, because le Marais has a lot to offer, from bookstores, kosher shops, shopping centers, and of course, LGBT spots to hit up.

Le Marais is also known for having a lively Jewish community, with its overlapping history of diടcrimination, strife, and beautiful culture.

Two museums commemorate the Jewish history of le Marais, Paris, and Greater France: the Shoah Memorial and the Museum of Jewish Art and History. These institutions don’t ignore the overlap of Jewish and LGBT identities: the Shoah Memorial hosted a temporary exhibition on “Lesbians and Homoടexuals in N a z i Europe” that closed in 2022, honoring that intersectionality should not be ignored. 

Nowadays, if you’re wondering where to meet gays in Paris, le Marais is the place to go. It’s in the middle of Paris—close to the Châtelet and Les Halles, the most central and busy transportation hub—so it’s easy to get to, and the neighborhood is very walkable. 

But remember that Paris is notoriously inaccessible, with most metro stations not having wheelchair access. If you are visiting and have a disability, it’s a good idea to research as much as you can about what parts of Paris are accessible to you.

Historically, the gay areas of Paris have migrated from Montmartre to Saint Germain-des-Près, back to the right bank neighborhood of le Marais, where it now stands. But a common complaint of local lesbians and sapphics is that there aren’t enough spaces for queer women. 

Sacre Coeur Montmartre Paris

Queer Places Paris

The Parisian queer scene is not limited to the central neighborhood of le Marais. There are many iconic locations in and outside the marshy center where you can engage with LGBTQ+ history, events, and art.

You’ll easily find bookstores, clubs, and cafés to people-watch, one of the French’s favorite pastimes. As for where the queers go, there are several highlights to add to your queer Paris travel itinerary. 

I like to say that any place is queer as long as a queer is there. Thankfully there are so many open-minded people from similar and diverse backgrounds that you can easily find in Paris by visiting several queer, lesbian, and gay bars.

So make Paris your own and curate your experience by seeking unique experiences.

Queer Lesbian Paris View

FREE’P’STAR & Kilo Shop: Paris Thrifting & Flea Markets

But before hitting some bars, you might want to come well-dressed, right? So get your next flannel at the local flea markets in Paris. And if you’re in the mood for thrift shopping, the Marais is (surprise) the place for that. 

As for styling your next queer look, you’ll have to check out the world-famous “friperies” – or thrift stores – of Paris found in, you guessed it, le Marais. The most famous Parisian thrift stores are FREE’P’STAR and Kilo Shop

But honestly, one of my favorite experiences living in Paris is turning a corner on a non-descript French street and right into a brocante or flea market. They pop up here and there throughout the fall, spring, and summer, and it’s genuinely like a treasure hunt because not one brocante is the same as the next! 

Paris rooftops, Toits de Paris Lesbian Couple

Queer-Friendly Hairdressers in Paris

Scattered across the city are hairdressers and tattoo artists who can pull the look together by bringing your ideal queer haircut and tattoo to life. 

Vik from Queer Chevelu is my staple hairdresser any time I’m around Paris, and their studio can be found in Pantin, an industrial neighborhood right outside the périphérique of Paris. Vik stands out because they’re committed to a sliding scale to remain accessible to Paris-based queers who need a quality haircut on a budget. 

And there is also Cristale of Crustacoupe!

If you need inspiration for your next hairstyle, we have 29 epic queer and lesbian haircuts and hairstyles for you to take inspiration from.

Paris-Based & Queer-Friendly Tattoo Artists

So you’ve got your hair done and your new queer outfit found, but something is missing: a tattoo, of course! There are so many tattoo artists, and queer ones at that. Find all of them on the Everywhere is Queer map.

Martha Gillespie is a sapphic tattooist who specializes in machine and hand-poked designs. Check out Incurvax Tattoo and queer tattoo collective La Kermesse in Paris for other queer tattoo inspiration. 

These talented artists and studios always come up with new designs, but if you want to design your own and need a jumping pad, here are some of our best queer & lesbian tattoo ideas.

Queer Bookstores in Paris

Why not go the extra mile and show up to your Parisian bar date well-read? You must visit the queer bookstore Les Mots à la Bouche for that. In this small and quaint shop, you’ll find magazines, books, and more that deal with all sorts of LGBT themes. 

As for a lesbian-specific bookstore, there is Violette and Co., which closed after the previous owner retired but is reopening after being acquired by a group of volunteers.

The LGBT Center of Paris also has a library, but like many other LGBT centers worldwide, it’s a safe space for community members to seek healthcare, counsel, and socialize.

The Paris LGBT Center hosts Women’s Fridays (Vendredi des femmes), which include writing workshops, shared meals, and more. Are you up for some lesbian speed dating? They’ve got that, too. 

Queer Tour Paris

Walking tours are a unique way to connect with a city by enjoying the views while at the same time learning about its rich history.

Paris has no shortage of walking tours, including LGBTQ+ tours. For example, check out the Oscar Wilde Tours to learn about tombs, palaces, and art museums with a profound gay history. 

Le Seine Queer Lesbian Paris

You can also find different tours highlighting the aristocratic history, like the Paris to Versailles tour, which can be personalized to highlight LGBT history.

Paris Gay Village is a non-profit that organizes tours all centered around LGBT life in Paris, focusing on different subjects (some tours about lesbian sociability, some tours about queer readings of museums, etc.)

From LGBT tours of famous Parisian cemeteries to “Lesbians of the Left Bank,” there’s a walking tour for everyone. 

View Eiffel Tower, Le Recrutement Café, Rue Saint-Dominique, Boulevard de la Tour-Maubourg, Queer Paris

Read our lesbian travel guide that that will help with planning your lesbian vacation. Including safety tips!

Lesbian & Queer Events Paris

June is the time of year that queer folks celebrate LGBT history and identity in France. Naturally, this will be the time to find the queerest events around Paris! 

If you love festivals, the Quinzaine des Fiertés is the event to attend. It’s a two-week festival in June that includes music, art installations and performances, film screenings, picnics, roller-skating activities, and partying! The celebration ends with the Marche des Fiertés LGBT or simply la Pride, as it is colloquially called.

Celebrate LGBT Pride at Disneyland Paris

For Disney fans, Disneyland Paris Pride is a day trip you don’t want to miss on your Île-de-France getaway in June. Just an hour away from Paris, you’ll find Disneyland, which celebrates Pride all night long from 8 pm to 2 am. 

LGBT Pride at Disneyland Paris The Jenna Way
Photo by The Jenna Way

Outside of June’s Pride Month, you can attend several women-centered events. Surround yourself with women who support women at the Women’s March every March in Paris, and hang out with women who love women at the Dyke March held around the Lesbian Day of Visibility in April.

Look closely to social media for exact dates as the season rolls around.

Dance with Tango Queer Paris

If you’re in the mood for some dancing, grab a date because it takes two to Tango at Tango Queer Paris

Find LGBTQ+ Film Showings at MK2

For cinephiles, MK2 cinemas often organize screenings of LGBTQ+ movies all year long and sponsor LGBT movie events and film festivals.

Musée du Louvre Queer Lesbian Paris

Queer & Lesbian Bars Paris

The queer scene of Paris combines fun, community, creativity, and solidarity all in one. When it comes to queer and lesbian bars in Paris, it’s no different. 

La Champmesle

La Champmesle is allegedly Paris’ first lesbian bar, opening its doors in the 1970s. It is located on Rue Chabanais, in the 2nd arrondissement. There is dancing, drinking, and event nights with cabaret shows and tarot reading!

Les Amarres

Les Amarres is a queer community bar on the left bank that may be the perfect place to take a date or hang out with friends.

It’s a community-driven bar that hosts intimate concerts, vegan and vegetarian meals, and drinks. The bar also acts as a community space that offers aid to refugees during the daytime, so when you buy a beer there, you know it’s for a good cause. 

La Mutinerie

La Mutinerie—or la Mut’ for the locals—is a lesbian bar that stands out for its dedication to the community. It hosts events like free self-defense classes, educational workshops for trans people, STD testing, and speed dating. 

Its location on Rue Saint-Martin in le Marais is ideal; La Mutinerie is a go-to for my queer friend group. When you have friends living across town, le Marais is the best central location you can get to, no matter how touristy and traffic-heavy it can get.

Rosa Bonheur 

A staple chain in the Parisian lesbian bar circle is Rosa Bonheur. With several locations across Paris and its outskirts, Rosa Bonheur on the Seine and Rosa Bonheur at Buttes des Chaumont are two visually striking spaces with convivial environments where you can have drinks and a good time.

It was preceded by le Pulp, a legendary lesbian club that shut down but whose legacy lives on in the now lively Rosa Bonheur chain.

3W Kafé

3W Kafé – which stands for Women With Women – is another bar you can find close to la Mut’ in le Marais, and its vibes and close quarters remind me a lot of the historic lesbian bar Cubbyhole in New York. Here you’ll find happy hour, karaoke, and, of course, women who love women!

Lesbian bars are few and far between when you compare them with many gay bars in le Marais and elsewhere in Paris.

Unfortunately, bars can close down without sufficient patronage, as with le So What !, so lesbian bars could use more support than ever.

Add La Mut’, Les Amarres, Rosa Bonheur, and 3W to your itinerary to check out the different vibes and support queer-run businesses!

Flamingo Street Art, Montmartre, Rue Berthe, Queer Lesbian Paris

Queer & Lesbian Clubs Paris

You have some choices if you’re in the mood to dance and rave with queer folks. 

La WET 

Your best for a good time is to follow lesbian collectives like Barbieturix, which organizes La WET FOR ME (or simply la WET) dance parties.

There is no consistency in dates; partygoers often wait with anticipation for the next event to be announced. 

Paris Techno Parties 

France’s techno scene is pretty world-famous. You can even find queer techno parties in Paris in the right places. Dyketopia is another lesbian collective that organizes techno parties and more in Paris and Grenoble.

You can count on La Flash Cocotte for the most consistent queer club and rave events. They host monthly parties for LGBT folks just looking to let loose.

Where to Stay?

Are you visiting Paris and are looking for the best places to stay? Or are you going for a staycation in your city? Paris has fantastic places to stay at. And in this lesbian-friendly destination in Europe, there’s no shortage of welcoming hotels.

We all don’t want to get those awkward questions about wanting a double bed, right? Or getting asked if it is a fun sister’s trip to the city.

Odalys City Paris Montmartre

Stay in one of Odalys’ studios or apartments in the heart of Montmartre, near the Sacre Cœur!

The Social Hub Paris La Défense

The Social Hub is one of our favorite hotel chains, with its expressive solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community.

MIJE Marais Hostel

Looking for a more affordable place to stay? Book a bed in the MIJE Hostel in le Marais, right in the heart of the iconic gayborhood!

Queer & Lesbian Paris Map

LGBTQ+ Rights in Paris & France

Some reasons why Paris may be considered an LGBTQ+ friendly city is because of its long history of queer activism, particularly during the AIDS crisis, as well as the reputation of France having an open-minded view on orientation.

The latter is an arguable point, as there is a lot of street harassment in Paris and other parts of France.

Despite the heavily unspoken social stigma around how women or femme-presenting people dress in public – French art, literature, and media have positioned the culture as open-minded, one that is not afraid of speaking about taboos. 

But like many other Western countries, France’s view on LGBT people has only recently changed. In 1750, Jean Diot and Bruno Lenoir were the last couple unalived by law for being gay.

A plaque in central Paris on Rue Montorgueil now commemorates their sacrifice. Only 41 years later, sodomy was decr1minalized in 1791. The protections for LGBT people over two centuries later have been hard won thanks to activist groups in Paris and greater France. 

View Eiffel Tower, Rue de l'Université, Lesbian Paris

Equalitarian Marriage

Among the wins was equalitarian marriage, which was finally legalized in France in 2013. And thousands have celebrated their love in France ever since – in fact, you can now get a queer marriage proposal arranged thanks to the Gay Proposal in Paris, an LGBT proposal agency

The fight for LGBT rights didn’t end with gay marriage. After much activism from lesbian communities, France finally allowed AFAB lesbian couples access to medically assisted procreation, like in-vitro fertilization, in 2021. Before this, only cishet couples were permitted this treatment, while lesbian couples and aspiring mothers were not given the same access. 

There is still a long way to go for transgender visibility. As ciടടexiടm is built into the language itself, with literally every noun having a grammatical gender, the LGBT community is pushing for a more non-binary way of thinking, including “l’écriture inclusive,” or inclusive writing.

The French take their language very seriously, so it was a big deal when the official French dictionary, Le Robert, introduced a new gender-neutral French pronoun: iel, a cross between il (he) and elle (her). 

Paris has also been a safe haven for immigrants. Historically, people like James Baldwin have found Paris a more tolerant place with respect to raciടm than his home country of the United States.

Musée du Louvre Lesbian Paris

Even then, France’s colonial brutalism can’t be ignored, and the fallout from this has been mass immigration from countries that were taken advantage of by French rule. Because of that, France is a country of immigrants, and some groups champion LGBT rights within marginalized groups. Take HM2F, an organization for LGBT Muslims founded by Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed, an openly gay imam.

To celebrate this rich LGBT history – of which I’ve only really scratched the surface – queers get out and party during Pride Month in June every year.

Though we all know that Pride is a year-long celebration, Pride Month in Paris is full of activities and festivities culminating in la Marche des Fiertés LGBT (the LGBT Pride March). Honestly, some locals end up calling it Pride.

Queer & Lesbian Paris History

When you think of a Parisian, what comes to mind? 

Do you think of any historical queer icons? Some may think of typical – and sometimes stereotypical – imagery: baguettes and berets, the Eiffel Tower and éclairs, not to mention the cigarette smoke on every sidewalk.

While some of this has some air of truth – patisserie and boulangeries are no joke in French culture – it’s worth diving deeper than the surface. Paris has art, beautiful architecture, and a rich queer history you can get lost in.

The LGBT+ community has extensive roots in Paris; it is as much a part of the Parisian identity as any other historical icon or group, and there is often significant overlap. This community involvement goes back decades and centuries to create the foundation upon which the queer Paris of today is built. 

Rue Crémieux, LGBTQ Paris

Artsy Queer Paris

Paris has been a muse for many artists, from literary legends to artistic visionaries. Marcel Proust of À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time) fame and the dramatist Jean Genet, author of Les bonnes (The Maids), are two among many gay writers who were drawn to Paris for the inspiration it had to offer. 

The city has not only been a beacon of inspiration for white French men; many writers from different backgrounds came to Paris for inspiration. Lesbian literary figures from Gertrude Stein (American) and Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (French from Burgundy) have deep connections in Paris.

American novelist James Baldwin wrote the iconic Giovanni’s Room based on a gay romance he had in Paris. The French capital’s pull attracted artists and socialites, so salons, underground bars, and clubs were common to meet the demand.

Lesbians in Paris

Le Monocle, in the northern Parisian neighborhood of Montmartre, is known to be the first lesbian nightclub that was a safe haven for queer women.

It had a gender non-conforming dress code in which women dressed in masculine clothing and socialized with their femme counterparts. 

Le Monocle Lesbian Paris

Regarding lesbian sociability and history, Natalie Clifford Barney’s groundbreaking impact on lesbian visibility during the first half of the 20th century, especially during the 1920s, is impossible not to mention.

As a wealthy American ex-pat, Clifford Barney settled in France early in her life. There, she opened a literary salon, a hub for lesbian artists and immigrants.

Around this salon gravitated some well-known lesbian figures who marked the French literary landscape, like Colette, Renée Vivie, and Gertrude Stein. Clifford Barney’s salon was also a haven for gay men (Jean Cocteau, André Gide, Pierre Louÿs, etc.), battle opponents, and anybody who felt different. 

Unfortunately, Clifford Barney’s legacy has been mostly forgotten today. One remnant of her time is her Temple of Friendship, built on the grounds of her property in the 6th arrondissement – in the neighborhood of Saint Germain-des-Près. It isn’t accessible to the public, and its secrecy has raised many conspiracy theories, but you can still get a peek at it by walking through la Rue Visconti.

Queer Cabaret in Paris’ Red Light District

Besides Montmartre and Saint Germain, another neighborhood with deep queer history is Pigalle, a district that, to this day, is swallowed by red lights. It’s home to the Moulin Rouge and other cabaret theaters and was home to queer folks who wanted to socialize and find work.

Pigalle Basketball Court, lesbian Paris

Unlike the Roman ruins – of which you can find very little in Paris besides the Cluny Museum – much of Pigalle’s red lights remain shining. Pigalle is now full of performance theaters, stand-up comedy, and heavy pedestrian traffic on the narrow sidewalks. Keep your eyes up and be wary of pickpockets when walking around. 

Underground queer bars in Montmartre, Pigalle, and Saint Germain-des-Près have come and gone, but you could say LGBTQ+ generations before us partied and risked a lot so that queer and lesbian Parisians today could do the same with a lot less risk. 

That isn’t to say there isn’t a long way to go regarding safety and LGBTQ+ rights in Paris and the larger France, and it wouldn’t be fair to single out the LGBT+ community’s role in Parisian history to its role in larger France. 

Enjoy queer Paris! Do you have any questions or want to add something to this guide?  Drop it below or send me a message.

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Queer Lesbian Paris Travel Guide
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