{"id":26806,"date":"2025-11-06T16:01:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T16:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/26806\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T16:01:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T16:01:10","slug":"philadelphia-to-open-nations-first-lgbtq-visitors-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/26806\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia to Open Nation\u2019s First LGBTQ Visitors Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia \u2013 Photo: Marc Dufresne via iStockphoto<\/p>\n

Philadelphia is extending its reputation as the \u201cCity of Brotherly Love\u201d with plans to open one of the nation\u2019s first LGBTQ visitors\u2019 centers.<\/p>\n

Slated to open in January 2026, the Philly Pride Visitors Center will debut in the city\u2019s LGBTQ neighborhood of Midtown Village, coinciding with the 250th anniversary of the nation\u2019s founding.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t just welcome diversity \u2014 we celebrate it,\u201d said Kathryn Ott Lovell<\/a>, president and CEO of the Philadelphia Visitor Center Corporation. \u201cOur hope is that the Philly Pride Visitors Center becomes a place where LGBTQ+ visitors feel they belong from the moment they arrive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Philadelphia boasts a large LGBTQ population \u2014 about 198,000 residents, according to a 2021 Williams Institute<\/a> brief. Beyond its role as the birthplace of American democracy, the city also has a rich queer history dating back to the early 1900s.<\/p>\n

In 1965, Dewey\u2019s Restaurant was the site of multiple sit-ins protesting the diner\u2019s repeated refusal to serve patrons based on their sexual orientation, gender expression, and cultural nonconformity.<\/p>\n

After several protesters were arrested for \u201cdisorderly conduct\u201d during the first sit-in, a second protest succeeded \u2014 no one was arrested, and what the Janus Society<\/a> called \u201cindiscriminate denials of service\u201d at the restaurant came to an end.<\/p>\n

Drum, a 1960s Philadelphia culture and news magazine for gay men, described the protest<\/a> as \u201cthe first sit-in of its kind in the history of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPhiladelphia has always been a trailblazer in LGBTQ+ history, from the first Reminder Day marches in 1965 \u2014 four years before Stonewall \u2014 to the Dewey\u2019s sit-in, where LGBTQ+ youth stood up to a restaurant\u2019s refusal to serve them,\u201d said Philadelphia Gay News founder Mark Segal<\/a>. Segal will curate historical content to ensure the city\u2019s LGBTQ legacy is authentically represented in the new center.<\/p>\n

The announcement comes at a time when federal agencies have been accused of removing or downplaying references to LGBTQ history and culture from government resources.<\/p>\n

In March 2025, NPR reported<\/a> that references to LGBTQ people, women, and people of color had been removed from several federal government websites. In compliance with President Trump\u2019s executive orders eliminating \u201cdiversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility\u201d policies, even the National Park Service deleted mentions of transgender people from a historian Wendy Rouse article on the suffragist movement.<\/p>\n

Subscribe free to Metro Weekly\u2019s digital magazine for the LGBTQ stories that matter most.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Read<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Read<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Philadelphia \u2013 Photo: Marc Dufresne via iStockphoto Philadelphia is extending its reputation as the \u201cCity of Brotherly Love\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[94,17544,17545,17546,17547,69,71,70,17548,17549,17550,4491,17551],"class_list":{"0":"post-26806","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-history","9":"tag-kathryn-ott-lovell","10":"tag-lgbtq-tourism","11":"tag-mark-segal","12":"tag-midtown-village","13":"tag-philadelphia","14":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","15":"tag-philadelphia-news","16":"tag-philly-pride-visitors-center","17":"tag-pride","18":"tag-ticker","19":"tag-travel","20":"tag-visitors-center"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}