Spring Is Here: Time to Rediscover LGBTQ+ Sydney

There is a point in a Sydney spring when an outdoor table stops looking like a test of endurance and starts looking like an excellent idea.

You leave the house with a jacket, spend the afternoon carrying it, and realise you are quite happy to take the longer way home. Someone suggests another coffee. Nobody immediately checks the time. Winter has apparently loosened its grip, although it will probably make one more attempt on the day you leave the jacket behind. Even though it sometimes feels like we are in the period of four-seasons in one day.

Here in Sydney, that change is a decent excuse to get out again. Have lunch somewhere. Look in a shop. Make an afternoon of something that would normally be a quick errand followed by a retreat to the sofa.

And if your experience of LGBTQ+ Sydney has lately consisted of remembering places you used to go, perhaps this is the season to add a few new ones. Pride Compass can help with that!

The places we walk straight past

While building Pride Compass, I have been walking around Darlinghurst and Oxford Street, looking properly at the businesses and spaces along the way. It sounds obvious. Walking down a street and actually looking at it should hardly qualify as a revelation.

Yet I keep noticing how much I would otherwise miss if I was just on auto-pilot on my way to the next appointment. So, lately, I've been deliberately taking things slow and lookin' at what's on show.

There is the restaurant you register just long enough to think, “We should try that.” The window display you glance at while heading somewhere else. A doorway you have passed repeatedly without being particularly curious about what is behind it.

Returning to Sydney after living here years ago adds another layer. I have memories of where I went then, which are lovely to have but not always useful for deciding what to do on Saturday. A familiar street can become a route between old reference points. Everything in between gets surprisingly little attention.

We behave very differently when we travel. Give us three days in another city and suddenly we are researching neighbourhoods, saving restaurants and happily taking a detour to look at a bookshop. At home, we can walk past somewhere for two years and still describe it as a place we are meaning to try.

Perhaps we could borrow a little of that holiday curiosity. No spreadsheet or itinerary required. Just enough interest to stop outside the window instead of continuing towards the usual destination.

Take another look, then go inside

Darlinghurst is a natural starting point for me because I am already spending time there. A walk along Oxford Street can involve familiar names and memories, but it can also lead somewhere you have never bothered to investigate.

Turn down a side street. Read the menu. Go into the shop instead of deciding from the footpath that you probably know what it sells. If you have been talking about booking a particular restaurant since autumn, spring seems a reasonable deadline.

You do not need to assemble an ambitious itinerary. Pick one place you want to try and leave a bit of room around it. Lunch with time afterwards is often more enjoyable than lunch squeezed between three other commitments.

Nor does queer Sydney begin and end at Oxford Street. Your own neighbourhood, somewhere a friend lives, or a suburb you usually pass through might make a better afternoon. The point is to give somewhere your attention, wherever it happens to be.

A small gallery can be enough of a destination. So can a shop with books you want to browse, or a community venue hosting something that catches your interest. You might see a notice for a performance and decide to come back another evening. An afternoon out has a useful habit of supplying ideas for the next one.

While we are on this train of thought, I'm so shocked that The Bookshop on Oxford Street sadly closed its doors after decades serving our community with all sorts of fantastic books.

Going out without going out out

There was a time when “going out” came with fairly clear assumptions about how late I would be getting home. These days, I am equally interested in whether lunch is good and the chairs are comfortable.

That still counts.

A thoroughly enjoyable LGBTQ+ day might start with coffee, wander through a couple of shops, take in an exhibition and end with an afternoon drink. Or carry on to dinner because everyone is having a good time. None of this requires standing in a nightclub queue at midnight, although anyone with the energy is welcome to continue.

This is less about age than about what sounds good on the day. Sometimes you want music and a crowded room. Sometimes you want to hear the end of your friend’s story without asking them to repeat it four times.

There is particular pleasure in the unhurried afternoon catch-up. You arrive without the sense that the evening needs to become an event. Order something, settle in, and discover that a conversation can comfortably occupy two hours when nobody is trying to fit it between work and the next obligation.

Alcohol is entirely optional of course (but ultimately more fun in my opinion). Coffee and cake do the job nicely. So does a daytime performance, a community gathering or a wander with someone whose company you enjoy. There is no minimum spend or required finishing time for a good day together.

And going on your own is allowed. You can browse for as long as you like, see the exhibition that interests you and choose lunch without a negotiation. Sometimes the easiest person to organise or please is yourself.

Give the group chat a date

“We really should catch up” is a lovely sentiment. We all use it far too often for code that usually means "I'm not quite ready to meet yet". It is also capable of surviving in a group chat for several seasons without producing a single lunch.

However, most of the time we all mean it. Then someone is away, someone is busy, and the conversation moves on to a photo of somebody’s dog. Another month passes. Still no lunch or coffee.

Try a smaller proposal. “Saturday, one o’clock, lunch?” gives people something they can actually answer. Two people saying yes is enough. You do not have to secure the attendance of everyone you have ever met before booking a table.

Choose somewhere that works for the people coming. A manageable trip rather than a trek across the city and a comfortable price plus whatever access they might need. Check the opening hours or session time before setting off. Then let the plan be simple. Lunch does not need a planning committee. Just do it!

Where shall we go?

That is the question I would like Pride Compass to help answer. Somewhere for coffee, a place for dinner, something to see, or an unfamiliar door worth walking through.

The directory is still growing, with much of my early exploring happening around Darlinghurst and Oxford Street. But the pleasure behind it is straightforward: finding places we might enjoy and making it easier to try them.

Pick a neighbourhood, have a look through the Pride Compass directory, and choose somewhere you have not been before. Send the message with an actual day attached.

Spring is here. There is probably a very pleasant afternoon waiting on the other side of “we should”.

By the way, if you have found an LGBTQ+ place or group missing from the directory, send us its name, location and anything useful you know about it, and we’ll take a look at your suggestion.