South Florida Pride Month Quiz:
How Much Do You Really Know?
Five stories. All of June. The LGBTQ+ history of South Florida, told the way it was lived: complicated, defiant, and completely its own.
South Florida has an LGBTQ+ history that most people who live here have never heard. Not a pride guide. Not a list of bars. History, the kind that starts in river towns and beach communities and ends up changing a city’s identity entirely.
Properly South Florida is spending all of Pride Month telling it. From the ripple of the Stonewall Riots reaching Broward County, to the beach the city never officially put on the map, to the slow, defiant transformation of a sleepy suburb into WilMa, this is the story that built what we’ll celebrate on June 20 in Wilton Manors.
Good old Florida. Where the sunshine is real. The stories are… complicated.
Stories Worth Knowing
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Welcome to Properly South Florida.
Stories about the people and places that make this region unlike anywhere else are headed your way.
The Pride Month Quiz:
How much do you really know?
From Stonewall’s ripple to Fort Lauderdale’s evolution as an LGBTQ+ destination — the history runs deep.
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Finding Pride 2026
Every week this June, Properly South Florida drops one new Pride story. Subscribe to have the complete series delivered to your inbox.
The Series
Presented by Properly South Florida · June 2026
Stonewall Came to Wilton Drive: South Florida’s Pride Roots
The riots that changed everything happened in New York. The ripple took years to arrive, and when it did, it changed Broward County in ways most history books leave out entirely.
Read the Story ↗Fort Lauderdale’s Open Secret: The Beach That Built the Scene
Long before it was on any official map, Sebastian Street Beach was the place South Florida’s LGBTQ+ community claimed as their own. The city never made it official. The community didn’t wait.
Read the Story ↗The Gay Mecca That Wasn’t Always: How Wilton Manors Became WilMa
A sleepy suburb. A strip of bars. The slow, defiant transformation of Wilton Drive into one of the highest concentrations of LGBTQ+ residents of any city in America.
The Drive: A Block-by-Block History of Wilton Drive
Every bar, every landmark, every pivot point on the street that built a community, told in order, block by block. Your historical tour guide before Saturday night.
Rainbow Flamingo: Why South Florida Pride Has Its Own Flavor
Miami’s Latin queer scene. Broward’s beach-bar culture. The snowbirds. The activists. South Florida Pride isn’t one thing, and that’s exactly the point.
Finding Pride Bonus Articles
- BLK Magazine and the Archive on Sistrunk Boulevard
BLK magazine was the first Black gay magazine in America. All 41 issues are archived at the African-American Research Library on Sistrunk Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale. Most people in South Florida have no idea.Continue Reading - Stonewall Came to Wilton Drive: South Florida’s Pride Roots
The Stonewall Riots in 1969 sparked a transformative ripple effect across the U.S., eventually reaching South Florida. Initially, Broward County ignored the LGBTQ+ community, but activism led to the establishment of Wilton Drive as a vibrant hub. Past struggles, including police raids, shaped today’s inclusive culture in Wilton Manors.Continue Reading
Explore South Florida with John Palmer Payne
John Palmer Payne is a Fort Lauderdale-based writer, marketer, and lifelong South Floridian whose work spans culture, travel, food, and the LGBTQ+ communities that make this region unlike anywhere else. His writing cuts through the highlight reel and gets to the real texture of living here — the neighborhoods worth knowing, the spots locals actually go, and the stories that don’t make the tourism brochures. These are his latest dispatches from the field.
Pride Events Happening in South Florida
Stonewall Pride Parade & Street Festival
📍 Wilton Drive, Wilton Manors
South Florida’s largest LGBTQ+ celebration with 50,000+ attendees. A mile-long street festival along Wilton Drive with 8+ stages, 100+ vendors, 15+ bars, food trucks, and the iconic Glow Night Parade of illuminated floats. Honors the 1969 Stonewall Riots.
Wynwood Pride
📍 Wynwood Arts District, Miami
Now in its fifth year, Wynwood Pride takes over Miami’s vibrant arts district every June with four weekends of programming. A month-long celebration focused on LGBTQ+ arts, culture, activism, and community.
Key West Pride
📍 Duval Street & Truman Waterfront, Key West
Five days of Pride on a tropical island. The closing Colour the Island Parade winds from Truman Waterfront down Whitehead and Duval Streets, finishing at United Street with an after-party at La Te Da. One of the most LGBTQ+-welcoming destinations in the country.
Oakland Park Pride
📍 Jaco Pastorius Park, 4000 N. Dixie Highway, Oakland Park
Oakland Park’s community Pride celebration at Jaco Pastorius Park, bringing together LGBTQ+ residents and allies for an evening of live entertainment, vendors, and community programming just minutes from Wilton Drive.
Why Pride History Matters in South Florida
South Florida didn’t just absorb LGBTQ+ culture; it helped shape it. Fort Lauderdale has been a destination for gay travelers since the 1950s, long before “gay-friendly” was a marketing term. Miami Beach’s South Beach revival in the 1980s and 90s was driven in significant part by the LGBTQ+ community, who moved into neglected Art Deco buildings and transformed an entire neighborhood. Well, they do say that when the gays move in, the prices go up, I suppose.
The region’s Pride story is also a story of resistance. Florida has been a political battleground for LGBTQ+ rights for decades. Understanding that history isn’t just interesting. It’s essential.
About This Series
Each week in June, we’re releasing a new article exploring the origins, icons, and ongoing evolution of LGBTQ+ culture and history. Subscribers get the full explanation, sourced and written in the Properly South Florida tradition: deeply researched, locally grounded, and refreshingly honest.
If you’re new here, welcome. We cover South Florida history, myths, legends, and culture year-round. Pride Month is just one corner of a much bigger story.
Want your business featured in one of these stories?
We’re actively looking for LGBTQ+ owned businesses, gay-friendly venues, hotels, restaurants, and community organizations to sponsor stories this Pride Month. Sponsoring puts your brand directly in front of South Florida’s LGBTQ+ community and their allies — right where it belongs.
Sponsor a Story ↗