Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada Photograph Collection (PH-00410)

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 transgender 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 The Nevada legislature that year repealed the state’s sodomy law and the Las Vegas gay community rallied to celebrate and dedicate its new Center on October 15, 1993.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 (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), 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, transgender people and 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 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 had 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 within Commercial Center to a larger space and added a computer lab, two large meeting/game rooms, and a comfortable community room/library. In 2012, the Center expanded again and moved to a free-standing building at 401 S. Maryland Parkway. The Robert L. Forbuss building is named for the Las Vegas, Nevada businessman and community philanthropist and held its grand opening on April 6, 2013.

Source:

Gay and Lesbian Community Center of Southern Nevada Records. MS-00537. Special Collections and

Archives, University Libraries, University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Las Vegas, Nevada.

“The Center: Mission & History.” The Center. Accessed October 22, 2019. https://www.thecenterlv.org/about/mission.