Visiting an LGBTQ2S+ museum can be a surprising emotional rollercoaster. Trust me—I’ve cried and laughed at a few of them, sometimes while staring at the same display case. They can be heartbreaking when engaging with serious topics like HIV/AIDS, laugh-out-loud funny when reading protest pins and posters with campy slogans, or joyful when a visitor sees their identity honoured and celebrated.
“It makes me realize that as a queer person, I am part of a bigger story,” said a Dutch traveller who I befriended after a night at gay bar Le Bear’s Bar in Toulouse, France.
Queer museums exist to preserve and celebrate the rich history of our people. They share narratives throughout time about activism, human rights, sexuality and identity from a local and international lens. They curate letters, pins, periodicals, photographs, recordings and other objects that remind us of our joys and struggles—items that have long been overlooked by other institutions and by society as a whole.
There are only a handful of museums around the world dedicated to LGBTQ2S+ stories. Visitors who find themselves in a city that’s home to such a museum have a rare opportunity to strengthen their awareness about LGBTQ2S+ history. Understanding our past will guide our future. Here are eight must-visit LGBTQ2S+ museums.
Auckland, New Zealand
The Charlotte Museum (1A Howe St., Freemans Bay, Auckland). Lesbians have shaped history in powerful ways, but there is only one museum in the world dedicated to telling their stories. The Charlotte collects lesbian sapphic herstory, sharing it with the public in a small purple building in one of Auckland’s hipper neighbourhoods. More than a museum, it’s also a community gallery and research library open to the “Rainbow+ Community” and respectful allies. Exhibits focus on the lesbian experience across New Zealand, with some presenting it from an international standpoint. Posters advertising Sapphic parties in the 1980s, work by lesbian artists and T-shirts worn at 1990s protests are among the 3,000 items in its collection. The museum also hosts various events including performances, readings and mixers for those over 40. The name honours two community members named Charlotte Prime and Charlotte Smith. The pair were dedicated to helping other women, including their involvement in the KG Club, a lesbian social club.
Berlin, Germany
Schwules Museum (Lützowstraße 73, Tiergarten, Berlin). Not far from Schöneberg, Berlin’s queer neighbourhood, is a museum showcasing German and European LGBTQ+ history. Much of the museum is given over to special exhibitions, which focus on a particular artist or artistic movement, social issue or movement, or era. Most exhibitions use multimedia—photos, life testimonies recorded on various mediums, items of clothing or other artifacts—to tell their stories. Its library and archive contains periodicals and more than 25,000 books related to LGBTQ+ life and culture.
The museum dates back to 1984, when three students working as guards at the Berlin Museum convinced the museum’s director to commission an exhibit about the city’s LGBTQ+ community. The exhibit was an instant success. The trio established the Association of Friends of a Gay Museum in Berlin the following year. What started as a mission to house the history and culture of gay men has grown to include a range of queer identities.
London, United Kingdom
Queer Britain (2 Granary Square, King’s Cross, London). United Kingdom’s first LGBTQ+ museum, which opened in 2023, comes recommended by recently appointed patrons Elton John and David Furnish. “It’s a museum for everyone—to learn, understand, and embrace what it means to be LGBTQ+ today,” the pair declared upon their appointment.
Queer Britain began by hosting pop-up exhibitions across London in 2018 before moving to its current four-gallery space at King’s Cross. Its permanent collection is small but features moving ephemeral items like pins; safer-sex posters from the HIV/AIDS crisis; zines; and items related to the Section 28 era, a UK law from 1988 to 2003 that prevented authorities and schools from “promoting” homosexuality.
The curated exhibits aren’t the only thing that make the museum a fun visit. The colourful message wall at the entrance has words of wisdom, hope and humour left by visitors globally in various languages: “I love my trans daughter,” “It ain’t no lie baby, bi, bi, bi,” “Queer love is valid and beautiful.” Some artistic people even left hand-draw images. The gift shop sells merchandise by queer artisans among other colourful items.
New York City, New York
Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art (26 Wooster St., Manhattan, New York). Shortly after Stonewall in 1969, Charles Leslie and Fritz Lohman opened their SoHo loft for an event where gay artists displayed their work. That event celebrated and supported the artists as the community entered a period of revolutionary social change. Today, the pair’s vision continues in a much larger SoHo space. As the “only dedicated LGBTQIA+ art museum in the world,” Leslie-Lohman preserves queer art and fosters the artists behind them. Its collection has more than 25,000 works illustrating the rich diversity of the community’s experiences. Art by Tom of Finland, Andy Warhol and Deborah Bright will be instantly recognizable to many culture vultures, but the museum is also a great place to discover new queer artists. A highlight is art collected during the HIV/AIDS crisis, ensuring the legacy of a generation of artists whose works would have otherwise been destroyed out of shame and embarrassment by the dying artists’ families.
São Paulo, Brazil
Museu da Diversidade Sexual (Estação República, Rua do Arouche 24, São Paulo). According to the Guinness Book of Records, São Paulo has the largest Pride parade in the world. So, it’s no surprise the city is home to the first LGBTQ+ museum in Latin America. Museu da Diversidade Sexual is located inside the República subway station, inviting visitors to transform their perception of the community through culture and art. Photographs, drawings, sculptures and other items foster dialogue and awareness about LGBTQ+ issues in Brazil and globally.
The museum reopened in 2024 after a major expansion, which allow it to host long-term exhibitions and increase its programming with more lectures and screenings.
Sydney, Australia
Qtopia Sydney (301 Forbes St. and 136 Oxford St., Darlinghurst, Sydney). A collection that includes artifacts and stories from the HIV/AIDS crisis, Indigenous experiences and our current fight for inclusion and equity is just the beginning of what this museum has to offer. Queer stories are embedded in its buildings and founding story. Qtopia Sydney opened in 2024 and quickly announced that it was the largest “centre for queer history and culture” in the world, spanning more than 1,700 square metres. The collection is spread over three campuses: the Main Building, which hosts a majority of the exhibits; the Substation, a performance space for queer artists; and the Toilet Block, a former underground public urinal turned into an exhibition space about cruising and queer sex. The venues themselves cleverly reclaim LGBTQ+ history. The museum’s main building, for example, is housed in the former Darlinghurst Police Station, which detained gay activists during Sydney’s first gay protests in 1978. One of the cells that detained these activists now displays the history of police brutality toward the community.
Museum founder David Polson was one of the first 400 men to be diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in Australia, and one of 32 of those men still alive today. Polson participated in 28 drug trials conducted by Professor David Cooper in hopes of understanding the disease and eradicating it. Polson and Cooper both wanted to create a facility honouring those impacted by HIV/AIDS. Cooper never saw that dream come true, but Polson fulfilled it.
Vienna, Austria
Queer Museum Vienna (Building C, Stairway 2 in Otto Wagner Areal, Baumgartnerhöhe 1, Penzing/14th District, Vienna). Queer Museum Vienna is small but makes a major impact with its dedication to showcasing queer arts, culture and ideas. Through special exhibitions, which cover topics like trans body rights, the politics of queerness and local history, the collective behind the museum works toward equity and queer liberation within an anti-assimilationist and anti-capitalist framework. Queer Museum Vienna also hosts a number of public lectures, screenings and educational programming in both German and English. Its Naked Guided Tour invites patrons to explore art and their bodies. Surrounded by many naked sculptures and bodies on canvases, the museum wondered why there were never any in real life? Its solution is an experience where nudity is not sexualized, but understood as a natural state and a symbol of freedom. Patrons undress down to their socks and shoes before touring the exhibition. They’re closed in the summer; check for opening hours before visiting.
Warsaw, Poland
Queer Muzeum (Marszałkowska 83, Śródmieście, Warsaw). Opening in late 2024, Queer Muzeum declares itself as the first LGBTQ+ museum “in all of post-communist Europe.” The museum displays around 150 artifacts, collected by the oldest operating Polish LGBTQ+ organization, Lambda Warsaw. The items on display represent less than one percent of the 100,000 artifacts the association has in its possession.
The museum’s expansive history of queer Polish people dates back to the 16th century. One of its prized possessions is a 1932 text that decriminalizes homosexuality in the country. Museum-goers also learn how the period between the Second World War (German authorities recriminalized homosexuality after the invasion of Poland in 1939) and the HIV/AIDS crisis was one of enhanced policing and persecution of queer people, a time when most Poles chose to stay in the closet. While homosexuality has been legal since 1970, the country doesn’t recognize same-sex marriage or allow same-sex adoption. The museum’s opening is a step in the right direction, happening a year after Poland elected a government with more progressive views on LGBTQ+ rights.
