Northampton Launches Queer Walking Tour

The college town of Northampton, Mass., a long-time LGBT haven, especially for lesbians and bi women, is offering an extensive walking tour of the city's queer history.

The 2.5-hour tour, "Journey Through Lesbian Mecca," happens May 4 at 2 p.m. and covers sites from the late-19th century, as well as more modern markers dating from the 1970s and '80s. Tour stops include The Common Womon Club, Ye Rose Tree Inn, Dyke Dorms, nearby Smith College, and places marked by "lesbian graffiti."

"The current climate of inclusion of LGBTQs in Northampton didn't begin today and it didn't come from nowhere," Bet Power, executive director of the Sexual Minorities Archives Foundation, which is organizing the tour as a fundraiser, said in a statement. "National attention began for Northampton's lesbian community in the 1980s due to the extensive underground of groups and businesses they built here in the 1970s."

Registration is limited; click here for info.