Gay friendly CA cities: San Francisco, Berkeley, Hollywood, Santa Clarita, etc! (Los Angeles: college, to live in)

[tinytim]

It seems like some cities are known for their gay-friendliness while other cities are just now coming out. It seems to me that Santa Clarita is getting more of a reputation of being gay-friendly. Is this movement just now on the rise, or has Santa Clarita always been gay friendly like these other cities?
There must be other cities that are becoming more gay-friendly besides these, why is this so?

[DMenscha]

Does it even matter anymore?

In my town there are probably a dozen openly LGBT couples. Nobody cares.

[tropical87]

Originally Posted by dmenscha

does it even matter anymore?

In my town there are probably a dozen openly lgbt couples. Nobody cares.

lol

[tstieber]

Yeah, I think it doesn't really matter much anymore. People seem to get along more and more.

[Gentoo]

I agree with the others. No place I can think of in CA seems to care. Now if you're looking for Fairly large LGBT community, your best bets based on my experience are the obvious San Francisco as well as San Diego. There are others in the LA area in sure but I'm less familiar with them.

[ferretkona]

Long Beach has several large gay communities, as well as Sacramento.

[kttam186290]

Who told you Santa Clarita was "gay-friendly" ? Just curious?

Here's the deal:

Santa Clarita is primarily a family town. When I say "family town" I am referring to the traditional idea of a family as one male parent, one female parent and kid(s). There probably are gay couples raising children there, but they are a very, very tiny minority.

Churches are a big thing in Santa Clarita too. There are lots of them. And big ones with 5,000 members too! Most churches, with the exception of St. Stephens Episcopal off of Orchard Village Rd., lean conservative and are not gay-friendly.

Proposition 8, the 2008 anti-gay marriage ballot measure passed handily in Santa Clarita.

Santa Clarita is typical SoCal suburbia, politically no different than say Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Camarillo, Moorpark, Fullerton, Mission Viejo, Anaheim Hills, Irvine, Fountain Valley, etc. In other words, it is a typical Republican-leaning suburb on the outskirts of the liberal sea of L.A.

Santa Clarita people are a little "provincial" about their valley, for lack of a better word.

They often compare the independent Santa Clarita Valley to the neighboring San Fernando Valley in the city of Los Angeles. I've heard them call SCV "the better valley". Things like gay rights, gay marriage, gay parades, gay nightclubs, etc. are things you find in "the other valley" which isn't to say that Santa Clarita doesn't have gay people, it does, it just doesn't cater to them the way Los Angeles and San Fernando Valley do.

So, taken as a whole, No, you probably won't get beat up or bashed for being gay in Santa Clarita. It's not like that. However, you won't find any gay community centers, gay activism, gay bars and nightclubs, gay boutiques etc. either.

If that's what you want, then Studio City, North Hollywood and Sherman Oaks are a better bet.

[nightlysparrow]

Palm Springs. Sometimes seems like the majority.

[04kL4nD]

Are you sure you don't mean Santa Clara? As in the wealthy college town/San Jose suburb? Or Santa Cruz? The hippie beach town that's gay friendly?

[Carlite]

I had the same reaction as many others who've posted. In coastal California, that is west of the Coast Range, I think you'd be hard pressed to find really gay-unfriendly towns. It's true that some places have large communities and others don't. San Francisco, LA, West Hollywood, Long Beach, Palm Springs, and San Diego are known for sizable gay communities. Laguna Beach did at one time but that seems to have faded But there are gay residents and gay bars (as an indicator,not suggesting everyone wants to hit the bars) all over the place.

You'd be best off figuring out what kind of place you want to live in, then checking out what kind of gay life it has.