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Where to go when you’re young, queer, and social in Boston
In Boston, the young queer community is building some of the city’s most welcoming spaces.
Garrett Haley was searching for a young queer community to make him feel less alone. After spotting a group of twenty-somethings having the time of their lives on Instagram in December 2024, Haley knew he had to make the trek from a small town on the New Hampshire border to check out a new group.
Nearly every Friday night, the basement of the Cambridge Community Center transforms into a performance space curated by young queer people, for young queer people called the Boston Queer Club.
“I’ve struggled in the LGBTQ community and I had not met anyone in it,” said Haley. “I felt really comfortable and connected from that first experience when a crew member came over to me.”
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The BQC’s design is to be a third space for fostering community between college-aged people in the Greater Boston area with a promise to help people find their people. Founder Ethan Ide, an undergraduate student at Babson College, dreamed up the concept after experiencing homophobia in high school.
“I had a fantastic childhood and I came out as queer in sixth grade in LA in a super progressive space, but I went to an all-male Jesuit high school where we had an LGBTQ club that we were not allowed to formalize,” said Ide.
Like many other young people seeking connection, Ide turned to online dating apps. Tinder opened his eyes to a queer community that was ripe with the same stories of feeling alone.
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“I’ve had people cry in my arms telling me that they don’t know where to find other gay friends, that I was their only one,” Ide told Boston.com. “So I said ‘Baby girl, I do understand and we are all thinking the same thing.’”
Ide saw an opportunity to fill a gap. BQC is not a dating app with a sexual or romantic focus; it does not serve or anchor solely around drinking alcohol, and is not affiliated with any university.
“During market research, most students I interviewed had never heard of their school Pride club or gone to an event because they were intimidated. They didn’t feel gay enough,” said Ide.
Since last spring, Ide has organized a rotating series of concerts and comedy nights fused with social hours for young people to find their community. They already have impacted more than 300 people, and are planning to expand.
To commit to building an inclusive community, the BQC asks members to paint one nail pink as a symbol of unity that pays homage to the AIDS crisis and the pink triangle. When a young queer person sees a room full of pink nails, Ide hopes that a member feels less alone.
In Greater Boston’s young queer ecosystem, there are pockets of light driven by young innovators, according to Christina Pascucci-Ciampa, founder and owner of All She Wrote, an intersectional, inclusive, feminist and queer indie bookstore in Somerville.
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“Having a dedicated space in Boston that is queer, is welcoming, and is a hub for those in the queer community is what we are about,” said Pascucci-Ciampa. “A lot of the work we are doing has interconnectedness and is not siloed.”
All She Wrote began as a popup in other gathering spaces and expanded to be its own storefront that hosts events like book talks and Pride-filled book fairs. Collaborations with other queer organizations continue to excite Pascucci-Ciampa. One example is a queer mini lending library run out of comfort food restaurant Ritcey East in Watertown.
Similarly, Dani’s Queer Bar in Boston hosts collaborative events with performers, businesses and organizations that are designed especially to bring queer people, especially women, together.
General manager Ari White was pulled to work for Dani’s to expand the sapphic queer scene that needed a revival.
“We were lucky when we first opened to have a lot of places and businesses supportive of us,” said White. Collaborations with organizations like the National Gay Basketball Association looking to host events livens up the bar on a would-be quiet Sunday or weekday.
Matt Malloy met his husband of 30 years out at a bar. Now as the CEO of Dorchester Brewing Co., Malloy sees first dates in action especially at queer programs that he hosts at the brewery.
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“I’ve leaned into creating safe spaces and my whole team is very proud of what we do,” said Malloy. Recent events at the brewery focused on gathering the LGBTQ+ community include a “Big Queer Party” and a “Bears, Booze and Boys” event.
Ahead of Pride celebrations in Boston, all queer community-driven organizations are gearing up for a collaborative set of events. Set to march in Boston’s Pride Parade and an afterparty in the works, the BQC is excited to transition into a celebratory summer.
“There has been so much going on right now that I feel is super devastating in the world. Having a space like the BQC has provided not just me, but also a bunch of people in the queer community a safe space to come and be themselves and not have to hide anything,” said Haley.
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