In the sapphic social scene, the promise of another night is never guaranteed. Fleeting moments of energy and familiarity are left on the dance floor once the DJ finishes their set, leaving partygoers to wait for another to take initiative and organize the next function at whatever space is willing to accommodate. This doesn’t come as a surprise to those familiar with the environment—a permanent home for these parties is hard to find.
The brick–and–mortar spaces that do exist for the LGBTQ+ community are often bars and clubs geared towards gay men. Out of the 803 recorded LGBTQ+ bars across the country in 2023, 194 bars served exclusively gay men—only 29 existed for lesbian women.
With the sapphic community marginalized within gay spaces, it falls on the shoulders of grassroots movements to keep the social scene alive.
Community organizing is a pillar of sapphic spaces to MP, who requested they be referred to by their initials rather than their legal name. MP runs Alphabet Soup, a sapphic–centered organization that plans events and parties for lesbians across the DMV and Philly. Based in Washington, D.C., MP started Alphabet Soup upon noticing the disparities between the sapphic and gay male social scenes. “Gay bars flourish [in D.C.] because there’s at least seven of them … and they all kind of hit a different niche or corner within the gay man community,” she notes, “Historically, people just haven’t been used to there being a market for lesbians and sapphics, so we’re kind of behind in that sense.”
She began working to combat this imbalance in 2023, hosting sapphic events at the queer bar she worked at until its unexpected closure the next year. Without a stable space, she thought of abandoning the idea altogether until others in the sapphic community suggested an alternative. “A lot of people were like, ‘You know, you can just reach out to other bars and clubs. They don’t have to be gay bars,’” she recalls. “That’s how I started Alphabet Soup.”
Alphabet Soup’s nomadic existence—jumping from bar to bar and hosting events at any venue that welcomes them—is what keeps them afloat. Without a lasting alternative, the sapphic community follows.
As MP describes it, an Alphabet Soup party attracts Generation Z and early millennial lesbians from diverse backgrounds by acting as a space where energy breeds connection. “In this age of AI and technology and being so disconnected from each other, what I would want anyone that comes to an Alphabet Soup event to get out of it is some sort of connection,” MP says.
Despite these efforts, brick–and–mortar spaces remain the ideal for satisfying a community without a place. “If a city does have a lesbian bar, it’s one lesbian bar, and that lesbian bar has to appease the entire sapphic community,” MP says. “That’s why it’s hard for sapphic spaces to be successful—because there’s only one, but the community has outgrown the need for just one.”
Val’s Lesbian Bar bears this weight for Philly. While other bars and clubs are popular amongst the women–loving–women community—like the lesbian–owned Stir Lounge and women’s sports bar Marsha’s South Street—Val’s remains the only place in the City of Brotherly Love explicitly labeled as a space to serve its sapphic sisters. Lesbian spaces are a relatively new addition to Philly’s streets—Val’s only launched in March of 2026, with Marsha’s opening six months prior.
“It’s automatically a sapphic night if you’re doing it there,” Hope Martin says of Val’s. Martin often hosts Levee—a sapphic–centered electronic party series in Philly—at Val’s. Levee came out of their desire to create spaces exclusively for the lesbian community, away from the queer nightlife scene that tends to attract cisgender gay men. This trend of hosting sapphic-exclusive spaces has unfolded over time as historically lesbian spaces across Philly change to take on a general “queer” label. Martin points to Franky Bradley’s as the prime example.
Before Franky Bradley’s was Franky Bradley’s, it was Sisters—a lesbian nightclub that started in the 1990s until the space was shut down in 2013 and rebranded to Franky Bradley’s in 2015. “Now it’s like a gay [bar] infiltrated by a lot of straight people,” Martin says. “I was trying to have Levee at Franky Bradley’s to bring back the fact that it is historically a lesbian nightclub.”
Despite it being one of the largest gay nightclubs in Philly, Martin believes the space has become increasingly less queer. “Their biggest dance floor is just everyone in the city who likes going out dancing,” Martin says. “They’re not loud about the fact that they’re a gay club.” Speaking with the bar’s previous manager, Martin was told that Franky Bradley’s was a space for everyone. “That’s lame,” Martin says. For now, organizers in the sapphic party scene in Philly must make do with what they have—whether it’s Val’s or the next queer space ready to open its doors to non–queer people.
Rohan Kurup (C ’27) echoes Martin’s sentiment on Franky Bradley’s—he’s been there with his straight friends more than his queer ones. “Franky Bradley’s is not a gay bar anymore. It’s more of an everybody bar,” he says. “I think they’re getting a little colonized, which is okay. But it’s sad to see their roots kind of disappear.”
Entering Penn as a gay freshman searching for a party implied a sort of code–switching for Rohan. “When you come to Penn, if you want a social life, that outlet is frats,” he says. “It’s only frats, right? And frats are not gay. They’re the opposite.”
The social scene changed for Rohan, however, when he went to his first Swalloween, the LGBTQ+ Halloween party hosted by Penn’s queer senior society Carriage. “I just thought that was such a cool concept—the idea that gays can throw their own party and it’s only for gay people,” he remembers. “It’s very liberating.”
At a school home to over 50 Greek organizations and senior societies, groups like Carriage, Elmo, and Herzog are some of the few spaces where queer social life has a home at Penn. And as the current president of Carriage, Rohan hopes to keep queer spaces on campus alive.
He accomplishes this by enforcing the one policy Carriage has for its events: If you’re straight, don’t show up. Despite exclusivity being the goal, however, it isn’t always achieved—at every Swalloween, Rohan says, you’ll find your fair share of straight students invading the scene.
“But it’s an affinity space for gay people only, right?” Rohan emphasizes. He sees Swalloween as a way for Penn’s LGBTQ+ community to emulate straight culture—to look at a person at a party and not question their sexuality. “Swalloween is our night to have that,” he says, “If I see two girls making out, that’s normal. That’s Halloween, you know.”
Paradoxically, exclusivity in who gets to dance on the floors of Penn’s queer social scene is how party culture becomes inclusive of LGBTQ+ students searching for on–campus nightlife. It’s why Rohan stepped back from advertising parties Carriage hosts to the broader Penn student body other than to amplify its philanthropic goals of giving back to the LGBTQ+ community.
“There is some niceness in being small and not being super recognized by everybody,” he says, “because when we want to throw an affinity event, if only the affinity [group] knows about it, that’s kind of how that should work, right?”
Penn’s sapphic social scene has a place on campus, albeit mixed within the greater fabric of its queer party subculture. This trend follows for the sapphic community outside of the Penn bubble, which similarly has to assimilate into the greater fabric of urban queer nightlife in order to survive.
Martin attests to the difficulty of creating sapphic–exclusive spaces. “Maybe one day I could open a bar or club space, and that’d be really cool,” they say. “But I think that would probably end up being more in general queer rather than sapphic, just because of the range of people who I work with and know in the community.”
