Portland Queer Girl City Guide

Have you seen Autostraddle’s Queer Girl City Guide to Portland? This in-depth guide lists all kinds of queer-friendly restaurants, bars, coffee shops, strip clubs, hair salons, and tattoo shops in PDX, as well as events — such as queer dance nights, Portland Pride, and a plethora of other rad LGBTQ functions.

There’s a lot of love for our home, North Portland, in this guide! Under “Neighborhoods of Interest,” NoPo is listed as a “Gayborhood” (amazing!). Many businesses in our area are listed, including Bishop’s (which just moved in down the street from us), Mississippi Studios / Bar Bar, The Florida Room, Sloan’s Tavern, Cup and Saucer, and Icon Tattoo. We were excited to see She Bop listed under “Etc.” as Portland’s local, female-owned sex toy shop. Here’s what they have to say about us:

[She Bop offers] a positive environment, helpful staff and a range of high quality sex toys. The shop also offers classes and workshops such as The Joys of Toys! & Exploring Burlesque: Striptease Salon.

The guide also gives a run-down of queer-friendly Portland colleges, sports teams, performing arts groups, outdoor adventure spots, and several non-profits we support, such as Bitch Media, In Other Words, and the Q Center.

Near the end of the guide, there’s an analysis of the diversity, safety, cost of living, and overall queer-friendliness of Portland, concluding that Portland is “very queer-friendly” and “very body positive, sex positive and accepting of gender variant identities.”

Within the city limits, queers are seen everywhere and go relatively unnoticed by the general population. Walking around town, you’ll see many different business with the HRC equality sticker hanging on a window, or a rainbow flag. Portland makes us queers feel very welcomed.

The overall atmosphere of the city is SUPER friendly. When walking around on a sunny day, expect smiles and nods from strangers and friendly waves. People in Portland are very chill, accepting, and friendly overall.

Autostraddle has published many other Queer Girl City Guides, including one for Seattle and one for Spokane. Really cool resources — check them out!