The Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada is a community-based organization which supports and promotes activities directed at furthering the well being, positive image, and human rights of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender community and its allies in Southern Nevada.
The Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada [The Center], a 501(c)(3) organization, was founded in the fall of 1992 through efforts inspired by the Friday Night Men’s Rap Group at the Community Counseling Center. Initially, The Center board of directors met in a small room at Community Counseling, but in 1993 The Center obtained its own building at 912 East Sahara Avenue. This small former dental office on a side street became the first safe public space in Las Vegas for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people. The Nevada legislature that year repealed the state’s sodomy law and the Las Vegas gay community rallied to celebrate and dedicate its new Center on October 15, 1993.
Within a few months of opening, The Center offered the community a host of services and programs. It provided free HIV testing; office space for the Nevada Gay Rodeo Association, the NAMES Project, the Lambda Business Association, PFLAG, the Delta Lambda Phi gay fraternity, SAGE [Senior Action Gay Environment]; and meeting space for groups in support of lesbians, gay youth, gay and lesbian parents, Hispanics, gay seniors, transgendered people—even a gay science fiction club. On January 23, 1994 The Center sponsored the first annual Man and Woman of the Year Award, known today as the Honorarium.
By 2001, however, The Center had outgrown its small building and the board searched for larger space. They found a 6,000 square-foot storefront across Sahara Avenue in Commercial Center which once housed the Second Time Around Thrift Shop, a fundraising enterprise for Aid for AIDS of Nevada. The Center moved into this space in February 2002 and held its ribbon-cutting and dedication on October 11, 2002 as part of Las Vegas’s National Coming Out Day celebrations. In 2006, The Center moved a couple of doors down where it expanded to include a computer lab, two large meeting/game rooms and a comfortable community room/library. In the near future community groups will begin leasing space at The Center so that more services and organizations will be able to serve the gay community.
Like Las Vegas, The Center is constantly growing and will continue serving the Southern Nevada LGBT community in whatever way it can. Watch for exciting changes and major announcements as we embark on celebrating our 15th anniversary in 2008!
Click here to find out more.
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