LGBT Scene in Florence
LGBT Scene in Florence: Culture, Entertainment, Music and Sports
How is the LGBT scene in Florence? How is the LGBT scene in Florence? In this article we want to guide you ito the cultural and social life of Florence LGBT community. Florence is probably the gayest city in Italy! Art is everywhere. Fashion with Pitti events, the high couture stores in the city center, the Polimoda Fashion School near the Arno river and the textile tradition. The antiques and the historical markets, theaters, museums and of course the great art masterpieces of the past. Artistic expressions are always related to gay culture history. More than any other community gay people enhance and renew the forms of art communications.
LGBT Scene in Florence: TO HAVE FUN
The Flog night
It was the most famous Florence LGBTI night event of all. It exists since 1992. It was only once a month from September to May. In recent years it was been re-named Necessariamente, because people feel the urgency, the necessity of this party.
The venue was always at Flog “Fondazione Lavoratori Officine Galileo”. This was a real gathering of people from all cities of Tuscany coming to Florence because they knew they would really enjoy as if they were going to visit some friends who organized the most massive of house parties. During the evening, there was always a different show: musical, plays, cabaret, live music or special moments of social propaganda on issues the community care about.
Then music stopped at 4am. You would came back to reality with the Sirtaki, which was danced by everybody while the security bodyguards expected the last survivors of the evening to recompose and go back home…
Flog is located just outside the center, just a 10 minutes cab ride. If you have your own car you can park in the pine garden parking for a couple of euros. We usually had dinner before the show at Giardino del Poggetto, the pizzeria in front of Flog. It was a real tradition of the community: first pizza, then fun and dance.
Regrettably, both Flog and the pizzeria have shut their doors after the pandemic, living an unbridgeable gap in the city and breaking all our hearts.
Piccolo Cafè
It’s the historic gay bar in the center of Florence, near Piazza Santa Croce. This year Piccolo celebrates its 21st birthday and changes its interiors every 6 months offering always new fantastic looks. On Thursday evening the most important DJs of the Florentine nightlife play here to entertain tourists and citizens. Furthermore, on Fridays and Saturdays there are so many people that you can just take your drink inside and drink it outside in the crowd, that street we can be considered the small “Florentine gay street”.
BK BAR
It’s a new bar restaurant in Calenzano. Patrizia with its karaoke night and its PATlive music festival delights all those w ho participate during the happy hour, every Friday and Sunday. You can find here the most disparate audience: a place where you talk with LGBTI fami lies of Florence and always have fun. Cocktails, DJ nights and tango dance events.
LGBT Scene in Florence: ASSOCIATIONS OF FLORENCE
Azione Gay e Lesbica
Located in Via Pisana 32, Azione exists since 1989 and organizes the Flog night Necessariamente. The association has always answered about gay events of Florence to the youngest people. They also organize Ciackline, a retrospective of gay-themed movies accompanied with debates, every week. Azione hosts book presentation events and debates. All the guys who work here are volunteers. They have also a stocked library of gay-themed books that you can always consult.
GGG Gruppo Giovani GLBTI
A group of young lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (and others) of Florence. They meet every week and the themes of each meeting are always different: self-training, confrontation, self- awareness and knowledge. To participate you can write to gruppo.giovani.glbti@gmail.com or consult their Facebook page.
IREOS
Ireos address is Via dei Serragli 3, just near the Arno river. You can always find a counseling of psychologists to talk about sex problems and you can do here, for free, HIV tests (just write to prevenzione@ireos.org). The test is anonymous and accompanied with an interview that will give information on risk behavior, ways of transmission, treatments. By the way, datas collected during the last years show that about half of the people doing the HIV test at Ireos are heterosexual. IREOS also organizes training courses on discrimination, meetings and educational projects in the schools of Florence. The goal is to encourage debate and discussions on issues like homophobia, transphobia, gender stereotypes, human rights and other related issues.
Also held presentations of books, meetings with authors, happy hours and parties. But the most important event organized by Ireos is the Florence Queer festival.
LGBT Scene in Florence: CULTURE
Florence Queer Festival
It’s one of the most important Italian exhibitions dedicated to queer culture. Arrived at its thirteenth edition, the festival takes place every November during the 50 Days of Cinema in Florence at the Odeon Cinema, the most beautiful and old theatre in Florence. Odeon is situated in the centre of the city, next Repubblica Square. It proposes movies in their original versions with Italian subtitles. The festival not only presents retrospective of important movies from all over the world, but also photo exhibitions, video art, theater, music, books presentations, debates and parties.
LGBT Scene in Florence: SPORT
Do you really think that gay guys and sport are two separate worlds? You’re wrong.
In Florence we have gay football teams and sport fans getting together organizing tournaments to promote not only love for sport but integration without prejudice. Do you like football? There’s Revolution Soccer Team. With great irony these guys propose the Finocchiona Cup (finocchiona is the typical Tuscan salami with fennel but also a term used to refer to a gay person in the Florentine slang). Moreover, a football tournament called MSP sees the girls of the team sponsored by GULP.
You can go to cheer the girls and be updated about matches visiting the official Facebook page of Gulp. 
Or what about a hike? In Florence Altri Passi organizes informal tours to guide people in the fantastic world of trekking. The target is always meeting new people during wonderful trips that alternate historical-artistic interest, landscapes and nature.
Visit Florence and have fun. Our city is not “just art”.
If you are part of the LGBTI community or friends, here you will never get bored!
