Montevideo

Montevideo has an LGBTQI+ scene that is smaller than Buenos Aires's or Santiago's, but deeply integrated. In 2016 the magazine Americas Quarterly described Uruguay as a model for social inclusion in Latin America, and you can see it on the street.

Unlike Madrid with Chueca or Bogotá with Chapinero, the city has no exclusive gay village. The scene is spread between Ciudad Vieja, where the queer bars are, such as Chains and IL Tempo, the Centro, with few venues but plenty of everyday visibility, and Pocitos and Punta Carretas, residential and without a nightlife of their own. That spread says a good deal about the level of social acceptance: the LGBT community does not need to shelter in a single neighbourhood. The night runs Thursday to Saturday and closes late, and the scene is more intimate, more mixed and less circuit-driven than those of its Southern Cone neighbours.

The Montevideo Marcha por la Diversidad is held on the last Friday of September and drew around 120,000 people in 2018. The first was in the nineties, and it keeps a political rather than festive character: the demands weigh more than the floats, from memory to trans rights, access to healthcare and non-discrimination.

It sets off from Plaza Libertad and moves along Rondeau, Libertador and De las Leyes avenues to Plaza 1º de Mayo. It is called by the Colectivo Ovejas Negras, Mujeres en el Horno and the Uruguayan trans organisations. The September date, rather than the June of the US and European convention, fits the calendar of Uruguayan activism itself. Around it sit the Llamale H LGBT film festival and the cultural events at the Cabildo during that month.

Montevideo has no exclusive gay village, and that is the key difference from Chueca in Madrid, Chapinero in Bogotá or Palermo Soho in Buenos Aires. The scene is spread across four poles.

Ciudad Vieja is the historic, port one, with queer bars such as Chains and IL Tempo and nightlife from Thursday to Saturday. The Centro runs along Avenida 18 de Julio, with few venues but plenty of everyday visibility. Pocitos is residential, coastal and well-off, fully integrated and without a nightlife of its own, and it works well as a quiet base. And Punta Carretas is the elegant residential one beside the southern coast, with its shopping centre. That spread reflects the country's level of acceptance: the LGBT community does not need to gather in a refuge neighbourhood, and the whole city can be walked without friction as a visible couple.

The reference organisations in Montevideo are the Colectivo Ovejas Negras, the country's historic one, Mujeres en el Horno, lesbian-feminist, ATRU, the trans association, and the Colectivo Diversidad, which acts as an activist network. On health, the public ASSE system and the mutualistas, with hospitals such as the Maciel and the Pasteur, treat people without discrimination as a matter of course. Fundación Encuentro works on HIV and sexually transmitted infections and runs testing. And PrEP is available to residents through ASSE.