Lavender Hill Cultural District

Lavender Hill is Denver's Queer cultural district. 

Where there are people, there have always been Queer people. 

The Lavender Hill Cultural District exists to amplify queer voices and stories, facilitate partnerships between the queer community, the city, local businesses, and residents, and further enrich Denver’s cultural landmarks and quality of life. Lavender Hill’s mission is to create an engaging place that celebrates the queer community, honors its contributions to our city, and serves as a vital resource for all of Denver. By creating this district, we ensure the ongoing empowerment, protection, and celebration of queer people in Denver and Colorado.

Historically located in previously fringe neighborhoods, in areas with limited access, or along busy roads, queer spaces in Denver tended to be clustered in areas people were less likely to notice. As the city grew, queer spaces continued to occupy the fringe of commercial areas, as reflected by the ‘gayborhood’s’ eastward trajectory over time.

Many queer sites and businesses continue to operate in Denver’s east-side neighborhoods to this day, with a particularly strong concentration in Capitol Hill and along the Broadway/Lincoln and Colfax Avenue corridors. The Coors Light Denver Pride Parade still runs along the original route established fifty years ago, from Cheesman Park, down Colfax, past the Capitol to Civic Center Park.

The color lavender has long been associated with the queer community and queer political movements. The Lavender Scare of the 1950s was a governmental attempt to root out homosexuals from the Federal government. Lesbians within the Women’s Movement of the 1970s were labeled the “Lavender Menace” by mainstream feminists.

In 1969, lavender came to symbolize empowerment, as the queer rights movement began to reclaim the color as a symbol of resistance. Lavender sashes and armbands were distributed to a crowd of hundreds in a “gay power” march from Washington Square Park to the Stonewall Inn in New York, to commemorate the Stonewall riots that had just taken place a month before. In the 1970s, Denver was home to Approaching Lavender, a queer coffee house.